Drought on the Prairies, Lab Turkey, Regenerative Agriculture and Part 1 of our Interview with Michael Graydon, CEO at Food, Health & Consumer Products of Canada

On this episode of The Food Professor podcast, my co-host Dr. Sylvain Charlebois and I unpack the sweet and sour of the latest news that’s shaping the Canadian food landscape. We also sit down with a very special guest, Michael Graydon, President of Food Health and Consumer Products of Canada to talk about the latest in sustainability and trends in part one of a two part interview.

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As drought hits the Canadian Prairies, Sylvain expresses his expansive concerns regarding North America’s water under the reality of the climate crisis. On the flip side, we talk about the latest promising agriculture innovations from biotech farming to McCain Foods’ recent commitment to regenerative agriculture practices.

From Christmas in July to chicken crises, Sylvain and I reflect on new alternatives to long-standing classics and the grim consequences of the supply chain issue faced by poultry processing plants. We cover the future of lab-grown meats and Sylvain explains just how this chicken processing plant issue happens.

Finally - is Newfoundland’s sugar tax as sweet as some advocates think? Sylvain talks about the successes and failures of sugar taxes around the world and methods for discouraging the consumption of sugary beverages.

As proud sponsors of The Retail Council of Canada’s 28th Grand Prix New Product Awards, we take a moment to celebrate the innovation that we saw and continue to see across the Grand Prix finalists and winners. We talk about highlights from this year’s gala and our predictions for next year’s line-up. Stay tuned for more interviews with finalists.

 

Michael Graydon

Michael is an accomplished CEO, with experience in both the public and private sectors. A proven brand builder with a history of generating compelling strategies generating significant top and bottom line growth. He has an extremely well defined ability to understand and serve consumer markets with improved and innovative products and services. Michael is a passionate leader, visionary and very creative in his approach to creating a very strong corporate culture and employee engagement.

Michael is the CEO of Food, Health & Consumer Products of Canada (FHCP), formerly Food & Consumer Products of Canada (FCPC). Under his leadership, FCPC merged with Consumer Health Products of Canada (CHP) in September 2020. FHCP is the voice of Canada’s leading food, health, and consumer products manufacturers. Our industry employs more people than any other manufacturing sector in Canada, across businesses of all sizes that manufacture and distribute the safe, high-quality products at the heart of healthy homes, healthy communities, and a healthy Canada.

Under his leadership, Food & Consumer Products of Canada merged with Consumer Health Products of Canada in September 2020 to create Food, Health & Consumer Products of Canada.

As President of Parq Holdings Michael was responsible for the oversight and strategic business development plans for the development of the new Parq Resort in Vancouver. Mr. Graydon joined PHLP in 2014 after six years at BCLC where he led that company to become a recognized leader in the gambling and entertainment industry worldwide and was instrumental in the launch of the first regulated on-line gaming site in North America. Previously, Mr. Graydon held several senior roles in large corporations including Canada’s largest retail buying company Mega Group, food manufacturer J.D. Sweid, food retailer Sobeys, The Keg Restaurants and Carling O'Keefe Breweries. His community commitments have included his role on the Advisory Board of the School of Business and Economics at Thompson Rivers University; the Board of Directors of the Interprovincial Lottery Corporation and the Board of Directors of Brand Source USA. He has also served as Vice Chair of the Canadian Chamber of Commerce and was the Co-Chair of the 2014 Grey Cup in Vancouver.

Michael LeBlanc  is the Founder & President of M.E. LeBlanc & Company Inc and a Senior Advisor to Retail Council of Canada as part of his advisory and consulting practice.   He brings 25+ years of brand/retail/marketing & eCommerce leadership experience, and has been on the front lines of retail industry change for his entire career.  Michael is the producer and host of a network of leading podcasts including Canada’s top retail industry podcast,       The Voice of Retail, plus        Global E-Commerce Tech Talks  and       The Food Professor  with Dr. Sylvain Charlebois.  You can learn more about Michael       here  or on       LinkedIn. 

 

Sylvain Charlebois 

Dr. Sylvain Charlebois is a Professor in food distribution and policy in the Faculties of Management and Agriculture at Dalhousie University in Halifax. He is also the Senior Director of the Agri-food Analytics Lab, also located at Dalhousie University. Before joining Dalhousie, he was affiliated with the University of Guelph’s Arrell Food Institute, which he co-founded. Known as “The Food Professor”, his current research interest lies in the broad area of food distribution, security and safety. Google Scholar ranks him as one of the world's most cited scholars in food supply chain management, food value chains and traceability.

He has authored five books on global food systems, his most recent one published in 2017 by Wiley-Blackwell entitled “Food Safety, Risk Intelligence and Benchmarking”. He has also published over 500 peer-reviewed journal articles in several academic publications. Furthermore, his research has been featured in several newspapers and media groups, including The Lancet, The Economist, the New York Times, the Boston Globe, the Wall Street Journal, Washington Post, BBC, NBC, ABC, Fox News, Foreign Affairs, the Globe & Mail, the National Post and the Toronto Star.

Dr. Charlebois sits on a few company boards, and supports many organizations as a special advisor, including some publicly traded companies. Charlebois is also a member of the Scientific Council of the Business Scientific Institute, based in Luxemburg. Dr. Charlebois is a member of the Global Food Traceability Centre’s Advisory Board based in Washington DC, and a member of the National Scientific Committee of the Canadian Food Inspection Agency (CFIA) in Ottawa.

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About Us

Dr. Sylvain Charlebois is a Professor in food distribution and policy in the Faculties of Management and Agriculture at Dalhousie University in Halifax. He is also the Senior Director of the Agri-food Analytics Lab, also located at Dalhousie University. Before joining Dalhousie, he was affiliated with the University of Guelph’s Arrell Food Institute, which he co-founded. Known as “The Food Professor”, his current research interest lies in the broad area of food distribution, security and safety. Google Scholar ranks him as one of the world's most cited scholars in food supply chain management, food value chains and traceability.

He has authored five books on global food systems, his most recent one published in 2017 by Wiley-Blackwell entitled “Food Safety, Risk Intelligence and Benchmarking”. He has also published over 500 peer-reviewed journal articles in several academic publications. Furthermore, his research has been featured in several newspapers and media groups, including The Lancet, The Economist, the New York Times, the Boston Globe, the Wall Street Journal, Washington Post, BBC, NBC, ABC, Fox News, Foreign Affairs, the Globe & Mail, the National Post and the Toronto Star.

Dr. Charlebois sits on a few company boards, and supports many organizations as a special advisor, including some publicly traded companies. Charlebois is also a member of the Scientific Council of the Business Scientific Institute, based in Luxemburg. Dr. Charlebois is a member of the Global Food Traceability Centre’s Advisory Board based in Washington DC, and a member of the National Scientific Committee of the Canadian Food Inspection Agency (CFIA) in Ottawa.

Michael LeBlanc is the president and founder of M.E. LeBlanc & Company Inc, a senior retail advisor, keynote speaker and now, media entrepreneur. He has been on the front lines of retail industry change for his entire career.

Michael has delivered keynotes, hosted fire-side discussions and participated worldwide in thought leadership panels, most recently on the main stage in Toronto at Retail Council of Canada’s Retail Marketing conference with leaders from Walmart & Google. He brings 25+ years of brand/retail/marketing & eCommerce leadership experience with Levi's, Black & Decker, Hudson's Bay, CanWest Media, Pandora Jewellery, The Shopping Channel and Retail Council of Canada to his advisory, speaking and media practice.

Michael produces and hosts a network of leading retail trade podcasts, including the award-winning No.1 independent retail industry podcast in America, Remarkable Retail with his partner, Dallas-based best-selling author Steve Dennis; Canada's top retail industry podcast The Voice of Retail and Canada's top food industry and one of the top Canadian-produced management independent podcasts in the country, The Food Professor with Dr. Sylvain Charlebois from Dalhousie University in Halifax.

Rethink Retail has recognized Michael as one of the top global retail experts for the fourth year in a row, Thinkers 360 has named him on of the Top 50 global thought leaders in retail, RTIH has named him a top 100 global though leader in retail technology and Coresight Research has named Michael a Retail AI Influencer. If you are a BBQ fan, you can tune into Michael’s cooking show, Last Request BBQ, on YouTube, Instagram, X and yes, TikTok.

Michael is available for keynote presentations helping retailers, brands and retail industry insiders explaining the current state and future of the retail industry in North America and around the world.