Florida Bans Lab Meat, Fake China Cooking Oil, Starbucks Troubles and Guest Dr. Tony Walker, Dalhousie University

The Food Professor

In this episode, we are thrilled to have Professor Tony Walker, a distinguished environmental scientist from Dalhousie University, as our guest. Professor Walker shared profound insights from his recent groundbreaking study on plastics in the food industry, a study that has been widely recognized and published in the prestigious journal Science. This episode delved into the crucial environmental impacts of plastics in the food chain, providing a comprehensive understanding of his findings, which were previously touched upon in an earlier episode.

We provided an update on the bird flu outbreak affecting U.S. dairy, a situation that has led to increased vigilance in Canada. We discussed Florida's pioneering ban on meat produced from cell cultures, a move that is being considered by other states including Alabama. The episode also examined the cancellation of Calgary's plastic bylaw, a decision that could have had significant implications for the city's environmental policies.

Additionally, the episode previewed the upcoming SIAL event in Montreal, where the podcast will serve as the official podcast, releasing episodes during and after the event as summer bonuses.

The discussion also included allegations of fraudulent cooking oil from China and Starbucks' challenges.

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Image: Volunteers from Green Africa Youth Organization and End Plastic Pollution Uganda examine branded plastic waste and record brand audit data in Kampala, Uganda. (Nirere Sadrach photo

About Professor Walker

Dr. Tony Walker is a Professor at the School for Resource and Environmental Studies, Dalhousie University in Canada. Tony has studied the impacts of plastic pollution for nearly 30 years. He helped participate in a Leaders and Experts Roundtable on Plastics and Marine Litter to help develop the Ocean Plastics Charter for Canada's 2018 G7 presidency. He represented Canada at the G7 Science Meeting on Plastic Pollution in Paris, France. He has published extensively on policies to reduce the impacts of plastic pollution and is an Associate Editor for Marine Pollution Bulletin and Editor for Cambridge Prisms: Plastics.

https://www.science.org/doi/10.1126/sciadv.adj8275

https://www.nature.com/articles/s41599-021-00747-4

https://onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/abs/10.1111/ijcs.12691

https://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S0025326X22001424

The Food Professor #podcast is presented by Caddle.

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.

About Michael

Michael is the president and founder of M.E. LeBlanc & Company Inc, a senior retail advisor, keynote speaker and media entrepreneur. He has been on the front lines of retail industry change for his entire career. He 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 Secure conference with leaders from The Gap and Kroger talking about violence in retail stores, keynotes on the state & future of retail in Orlando and Halifax, and at the 2023 Canadian GroceryConnex conference, hosting the CEOs of Walmart Canada, Longo's and Save-On-Foods Canada. Michael brings 25+ years of brand/retail/marketing & eCommerce leadership experience with Levi's, Black & Decker, Hudson's Bay, Pandora Jewellery, The Shopping Channel and Retail Council of Canada to his advisory, speaking and media practice.
Michael also produces and hosts a network of leading retail trade podcasts, including the award-winning No.1 independent retail industry podcast in North America, Remarkable Retail,
Canada's top retail industry podcast; the Voice of Retail; Canada's top food industry and the top Canadian-produced management independent podcasts in the country, The Food Professor, with Dr. Sylvain Charlebois.
Rethink Retail has recognized Michael as one of the top global retail influencers for the fourth year in a row, Coresight Research has named Michael a Retail AI Influencer, and you can tune into Michael’s cooking show, Last Request BBQ, on YouTube, Instagram, X and yes, TikTok.
Available for keynote presentations helping retailers, brands and retail industry insiders explaining the current state of the retail industry in Canada and the U.S., and the future of retail.