Michael & Sylvain open Season Seven with a guest-free catch-up on the summer that reshaped Canadian food. Section 338 tariffs and the supply management fight, the Competition Bureau's challenge to Nortera's Green Giant deal, cyclospora and the lettuce recalls, beef volumes sliding almost 5%, El Nino's pull on 2027 food inflation, and Gay Lea's $200 million Toronto bet. Plus Sylvain's new book, Feed the Power, and a tribute to Senator Todd Lewis.
The Food Professor podcast returns for Season Seven with a no-guest, all-catch-up season premiere. Michael LeBlanc and Dr. Sylvain Charlebois are back on the mic after a summer of live interviews from SIAL, and there is a serious backlog of Canadian and international food industry news to work through.
Sylvain opens with the summer he actually had: 25 to 30 media interviews a week, including live hits on CNN and Fox News about explosive poo and the U.S. lettuce recalls. That leads into a real conversation about food safety and Cyclospora, a parasite you cannot simply wash off produce. With Taylor Farms, a $7 billion operator, at the centre of the recall, Michael asks the obvious question: if the most sophisticated player in the category cannot stop it, who can? Sylvain compares oversight on both sides of the border, noting roughly 8,000 federal inspectors in the U.S. versus nearly 4,000 in Canada for a tenth of the population, and explains why our cold chain and an actual winter lower the risk here.
Then the tariff file. Sylvain names Section 338 of the Tariff Act of 1930, Smoot-Hawley's descendant, as the summer's number-one story, with agriculture squarely targeted: dairy, alcohol, and honey. On the Canadian side, they dig into a counter-tariff list heavy on seafood and ag, whether it can really move U.S. midterms, and why potash retaliation could backfire on Canadian producers.
Story number two: the Competition Bureau sending Nortera's acquisition of B&G Foods Canada's Green Giant and Le Sieur brands to the Competition Tribunal, a striking break from twenty years of waved-through Canadian grocery and food consolidation.
Also on the docket: beef volumes down almost 5% and the risk of losing Canadian shoppers to a premium-price perception; Tyson idling a plant for lack of supply; chicken production up 5.6% as dark meat demand climbs; stubborn diesel prices and the Strait of Hormuz; Gay Lea Foods' $200 million Toronto investment against a backdrop of 1,400 new U.S. food plants versus fewer than 50 in Canada; El Nino's likely push on 2027 food inflation; and why GLP-1 drugs may reshape the Halloween candy aisle, plus the CNE's wildest new midway foods.
Sylvain also previews his tenth book, Feed the Power, on food geopolitics, out from University of Toronto Press in January 2027. The episode closes with a tribute to Senator Todd Lewis, a rare and genuine agriculture advocate in Ottawa, and a candid exchange about Prime Minister Carney's trade posture and where Canada goes next.
Next week: Dave Jones of Bento Sushi.