The Food Professor

AGT Foods CEO Murad Al-Katib on Value-Added Food, Plus Record Food Bank Use and Quebec’s Maple Syrup Shock

Episode Summary

Murad Al-Katib started AGT Food and Ingredients as a lentil company in his Saskatchewan basement. Today it sells in 127 countries. The AGT founder and CEO explains why Canada’s commodity mindset is holding back value-added food processing, why he’s bullish on India, and why, in a country with this much food, he calls Canada’s food inflation record a “shameful failure.” In the news, Canadian Food Sentiment Index - the fifth edition; the HungerCount 2026: Food Banks Canada reports 2.35 million visits a month. Quebec maple syrup: The province’s strategic reserve is empty.

Episode Notes

Murad built AGT on one bet: that Prairie farmers would replace summer fallow with lentils, chickpeas, peas and beans. The company now runs 41 manufacturing facilities on five continents, with Prem Watsa’s Fairfax Financial as its partner. He makes the case for adding value to even a fraction of Canada’s harvest, for fixing east-west trade infrastructure from Churchill to the Atlantic Gateway, and for a real industrial strategy. 

In the news

• Canadian Food Sentiment Index: The fifth edition finds coupon use down from 30.5% to 20.3% as shoppers settle on private label. Omnivores have fallen to 56.7% of Canadians, and GLP-1 use could reach five million by 2030.
• HungerCount 2026: Food Banks Canada reports 2.35 million visits a month. B.C. posted the largest increase at 14%, and children make up a third of those served.
• Quebec maple syrup: The province’s strategic reserve is empty. Demand is outpacing supply, and new production is held back by the cost of equipment and the wait for it.

Plus: an egg-plant lockout in Quebec and the Save-On-Foods loyalty-program breach and France grocery cyber-attack.

Topics include:

• AGT Foods and the protein revolution
• Canada–India trade and agri-food exports
• Value-added food processing and industrial strategy
• Food insecurity and food bank use