In this episode, our Trying Stuff segment features GoGo Quinoa, in this episode lentil pasta and whaaaat…breakfast cereal! We have a great interview with Xavier Poncin, CEO of the food innovation show SIAL North America's biggest food-innovation trade show, MONTREAL APRIL 20 TO 22, 2022 • PALAIS DES CONGRÈS Sylvain and I assess food movement across the border - the short and long term damage done with border blockades
Welcome to the food professor podcast episode 42!
In this episode, our Trying Stuff segment features GoGo Quinoa, in this episode lentil pasta and whaaaat…breakfast cereal! A reminder to the brands out there, just send us product and we try it, this isn’t paid or any any other way a promotional spot:
We have a great interview with Xavier Poncin, CEO of the food innovation show SIAL North America's biggest food-innovation trade show, MONTREAL APRIL 20 TO 22, 2022 • PALAIS DES CONGRÈS
Sylvain and I assess food movement across the border - the short and long term damage done with border blockades
Inflation nation! Three decade high, 3.4% - last time in 1991 we saw 5.1% food playing a significant role, as is the price of gasoline and shelter, with apparel on of the few moving backwards
We talk ButterGate Redux: Sylvain's academic paper published tells all!
About
CEO of Expo Canada France, SIAL Canada organiser, I like to call myself as a self-made-man with lots of luck.
After 2 years of international business school, I decided to quit studies preferring actions than theory, as I was showing on football field as the quarterback of the French national team, sports I played at the highest level in Europe for 17 years.
I started in the trade show business in 94 in Blenheim/Reed subsidiary at the lower level as sale assistant, then left the company to Join EXPOSIUM (COMEXPOSIUM now) in October 1997 where I started as junior sales manager for an international show dedicated to the Print industry, Graphitec 98.
I believe my work ethic and desire to succeed made me climb the ladder quickly and managed to become the international sales director in 2004 for one of the biggest international construction show in the world, Intermat.
My desire to get an international experience abroad was the next goal I wanted to achieve.
In 2008, the position of Executive Director of Expo Canada France in Montreal is offered for 3 years with 2 main goals, repositioning and redeveloping the SIAL brand in Canada.
Those 2 goals are now well achieved, thanks to great teamwork and team commitment, with since 2010, a stunning 90% of growth.
With this success, we made the decision with my iwfe to stay in Montreal in 2013 with our 2 kids, Valentine 15 and Thomas 10.
In 2016, I have been named and rewarded CEO of the company by our stakeholders for our accomplishment.
In january 2017, I have been honored « Chevalier de l’ordre du Mérite Agricole » by the French Minister of Agriculture, Stéphane Lefol, for what he said, my involvement and positive influence on the french international agrifood show brand, SIAL.
About Us
Dr. 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.
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 , The Food Professor with Dr. Sylvain Charlebois and now in its second season, Conversations with CommerceNext! You can learn more about Michael here or on LinkedIn.
Be sure and check out Michael's latest adventure for fun and influencer riches - Last Request Barbecue, his YouTube BBQ cooking channel!
Michael LeBlanc 00:04
All right, welcome to The Food Professor podcast, episode 42. I'm Michael LeBlanc.
Sylvain Charlebois 00:09
And I'm The Food Professor, Sylvain Charlebois.
Michael LeBlanc 00:12
Well Sylvain, I don't know what we're going to talk about there's almost nothing going on in the industry but I think we'll, we'll manage. I think we'll find a few things to talk about in this episode. So, but first of all, we've got our, a great sequence, a great segment again, Trying Stuff and this time we have GoGo Quinoa. Look at that GoGo Quinoa, -
Sylvain Charlebois 00:30
That's, right.
Michael LeBlanc 00:31
Lentil pasta and vegan cheese. And then they also sent, whaaat, strawberry quinoa, -
Sylvain Charlebois 00:38
I know.
Michael LeBlanc 00:38
Cereal, come on, how exciting. (crossover talk), -
Sylvain Charlebois 00:41
That was a bit of a surprise. So, oats and quinoa cereals. So, we're going to try that as well.
Michael LeBlanc 00:47
Very exciting. So, a great Canadian, a Montreal based company reached out, -
Sylvain Charlebois 00:48
Yeah.
Michael LeBlanc 00:52
And once again, for the listeners and the viewers on YouTube, people just send us this stuff and we're under no obligation to try it. We just try stuff and we love exposing new products and brands and trying different stuff and talking about, -
Sylvain Charlebois 01:02
And if you want us to try your products, please connect with either myself or Michael.
Michael LeBlanc 01:09
Yeah, yeah, LinkedIn or whatever, reach out and we'd love we got more stuff coming. We've tried lots of great product. And, -
Sylvain Charlebois 01:16
I know.
Michael LeBlanc 01:16
We, we also have a great interview coming up. We got a great interview with Xavier, from SIAL, the great trade show. And, and you know, it's probably one of the first food international showcase shows, any show, in the industry in Canada since COVID, right? So, it's very exciting happening in Montreal. We'll, we'll get to, you know, we will get to a lot more details on that. All right. -
Sylvain Charlebois 01:34
Yeah.
Michael LeBlanc 01:38
Well, let's jump right in. I mean, where to start? Well, let's talk about, let's talk about food movement across the border. So, I wanted to get from you the short and long-term damage, if any, done with the border blockade. So, I just and, and you know, of course, done to the food industry, because this isn't a political podcast, we could go on and on off mic, -
Sylvain Charlebois 02:00
Oh, yeah.
Michael LeBlanc 02:01
About different things. But let's just hone in on this very broad topic about, -
Sylvain Charlebois 02:05
On trades, yeah.
Michael LeBlanc 02:07
On trade, and specifically on the food business and the food trade, short and long-term assessment, as you thinking about it.
Sylvain Charlebois 02:13
I've, I've been, I've been speaking to some, some industry pundits, importers and it's, it's not, it's not a great scenario right now. I mean, it's been complicated that, it's been complicated for a while. The vaccine mandate was one thing. It was, it basically brought some challenges. But those challenges were actually predictable. And you can plan your way with, you know, by, by doing business with your, with companies in the US, and vice-versa. It was, it was possible to actually plan ahead, because the decision was made back in November.
Michael LeBlanc 02:52
Yeah.
Sylvain Charlebois 02:53
But, but the blockade just made things much worse, unfortunately. And, and so as you know, Michael, I'm, I'm here this, this semester at the University of South Florida. So, I do interact with a lot of Americans. I mean, last week it was all about, obviously, the Super Bowl. The Super Bowl took a big face in the, in the news cycle. But after the Ukraine and the Super Bowl, it was, it was Ottawa, it was it was the border. And, and frankly, and, and President Biden actually did talk about the situation, particularly in relation to the bridge in Windsor. Which really would see 25% of all commerce between the two countries, (crossover talk), -
Michael LeBlanc 03:35
Like 400, what’s it 400, 450 million dollars a day that move across the bridge between our two great nations, right? (inaudible)
Sylvain Charlebois 03:39
And then Agri-Food it's 8 to 12 billion a year. So, just in food.
Michael LeBlanc 03:40
Huge
Sylvain Charlebois 03:41
And so it was, it was problematic. And of course, when, when, when the bridge was blocked, it became America's problem as much as Canada's problem. I mean, this. I've always said in my talks, that the, that supply chains are the backbone of both economies. But the border itself is it’s, it’s, is, is the spinal cord of our economy, really. Without the border, a functioning border, an open fluid border, things really get messy very quickly. And we saw that with the car industry. We saw that with different industries.
Unfortunately, I, I've heard reports from grocers that they had to scrap cargo produce, because the cold chain was compromised as a result of delays. They had to reroute, they had to go to Sarnia instead of going through Windsor, (crossover talk), -
Michael LeBlanc 04:43
Which is a small point. I've been to Sarnia a bunch of times and it's not, it's not the Windsor Detroit infrastructure, (crossover talk), right?
Sylvain Charlebois 04:51
Exactly. So, it, it just made things more complicated than and frankly, when I heard that, that the Trudeau government was, was going ahead with the emergency measure, from an international perspective, so, for America, looking into Canada, I think it was actually the right message to send. Now, I don't know what the parameters of the decision are because of course, you need all parties to support this and everything else. But, -
Michael LeBlanc 04:53
Yeah.
Sylvain Charlebois 04:55
From, from a, from a, for America, I think that's, that's the message you had to send. Because as soon as, as, as we saw problems at the border, what I'm hearing in Florida are things like, well, maybe Canada is actually making a case for, ‘Buy American first’, as an example. And as soon as you start hearing that, it's, it's problematic. I mean, we, we need America and America needs us. And so, I, I'm, I'm pleased that something did happen in the end. I don't know what, what are your thoughts, Michael?
Michael LeBlanc 05:58
Well, listen, you know, the Emergencies Act as an act of proportionality. I mean, if, you know, the Prime Minister's father put in the War Measures Act in the early 70s, which was a, you know, blunt two by four of an act, whereas basically martial law. So that, you know, this, it both sends a signal internal, it does a bunch of things around funding. We won't get into that, because we could go down a long, dark rabbit hole about what's going on, -
Sylvain Charlebois 06:21
Exactly.
Michael LeBlanc 06:22
But you know, listen, at the end of the day, the border had to flow. I'm surprised the, the one thing that jumped out at me, you know, when I was listening to the Premier Ford's, Ontario Premier Ford saying, you know, we're going to pass some laws that make it illegal to do this. I'm like, aren't there laws already about blocking borders?
Sylvain Charlebois 06:36
I know, I know.
Michael LeBlanc 06:37
Is that new, is that new that there's, there's no law against blocking a border. Anyway, -
Sylvain Charlebois 06:42
Upholding the law is an important thing when it comes to trades and, (crossover talk), and it's not just about, you know, rights in our country. It's all, it's all about the image. I mean, I actually do think that Canada's image was, was impacted, (crossover talk), by what happened.
Michael LeBlanc 06:58
I think we're, we're like the fruit that sat on the trucks were bruised fruit, and, -
Sylvain Charlebois 07:02
Yes.
Michael LeBlanc 07:03
Right?
Sylvain Charlebois 07:04
Absolutely, (crossover talk) and, and of course, as you know, Michael, this morning, we saw inflation numbers coming out, -
Michael LeBlanc 07:11
Yeah, my next to the next point (crossover talk), -
Sylvain Charlebois 07:12
From Statistics Canada. And I don’t know you went through the numbers, but I actually went through the numbers this morning, and you could feel, -
Michael LeBlanc 07:17
Yeah.
Sylvain Charlebois 07:18
That supply chain issues are impacting food prices and, and border related challenges, (crossover talk), are also impacting food prices as well. And, -
Michael LeBlanc 07:19
Yeah.
Sylvain Charlebois 07:20
And of course, we don't know if it's because of the mandates or the blockades, or, I mean, because, of course, we've been dealing with, with (inaudible) measures impacting the border since November, because that's when the decision was made on both sides of the border. And so, I actually do think it's important to calm things down as much as possible so we can, so we can provide a predictable market trading environment for businesses, that's really the most important thing.
Michael LeBlanc 08:02
Let's talk about Inflation Nation. Three decade high, 3.4% inflation, and I was pulling it apart. I mean, in the last, I mean the last, what was in 1991, coming out of the last recession is 5.4. So, proportionality, it's not it's, it's big, but it's not as big as it has been historically. Now, I, I as well did a little reading, I saw that, really, it's driven by three factors, you know, food, gas, and accommodations. There's actually some things went the other way, apparel actually went the other way. Now, that, -
Sylvain Charlebois 08:31
Yeah.
Michael LeBlanc 08:33
Comes as no surprise to you. I mean, talk about you, you know, you wrote the report. You know, the Food Price Report that we talked about in our episodes, -
Sylvain Charlebois 08:40
It's getting closer to our target. Yeah, -
Michael LeBlanc 08:42
It's getting closer. Like, what when you slice the data, what was the food inflation number? And I had to laugh because you had the little meme of the rocket taking off. In your Twitter, it just made, made me laugh. But are you, are you concerned? I think it was like 6, 6.1, 6., (inaudible) -
Sylvain Charlebois 08:58
6.5.
Michael LeBlanc 08:59
6.5% in the month of January. Based on our conversations previously, are you concerned that it's not 6.5, it's more like 10.5? Because they may or may not be tracking it in the way that you would think? Are you, or do you think they're kind of close to the no-, hitting on the nose at 6%?
Sylvain Charlebois 09:17
They're getting closer. I don't think they're there yet. But funny enough, Michael, I've been talking to some colleagues at the University of South Florida and, and they too believe that, that America is not reading inflation correctly, as well. So, and, and they came in this week at 7.4%.
Michael LeBlanc 09:37
Wow, 7.4, -
Sylvain Charlebois 09:38
Yeah. And, and when you look historically, the last 30 years, typically Canada catches up to America. So, I, I hate to be the bearer of bad news, but this is just the start. We are looking at a very expensive 2022, unfortunately. So, for consumers bad news, for sure.
Michael LeBlanc 09:58
Yeah.
Sylvain Charlebois 09:58
But what we often don't talk about in the media is how inflation will impact supply chain relationships. You know this, Michael, I mean, as soon as, let's say you're a processor, and you have to charge more, you have to pass on extra costs to your customer like Walmart, Costco, Loblaw, Sobeys, Metro, there's, there's a lot of pushing and shoving. Not all retailers are willing to take on more costs and increase prices of retail. They want to make sure that things remain under control. And so, in, in some parts of the world right now, you're seeing processors boycotting retailers, because they can't really increase prices and we're talking CPG companies here.
Michael LeBlanc 10:07
Yeah.
Sylvain Charlebois 10:09
So, I'm wondering, and we're starting to see that in, in America right here in the United States. So, I'm wondering how this high inflation rate will impact this relation- because we don't have a code. And we've talked about the code and still we're, we're expecting something in April of this year. I'm just wondering how it will impact relationships between processors and retailers right now. Are you hearing anything on your end, Michael?
Michael LeBlanc 11:12
Yeah, I mean, you know, I talked to one retailer who basically said over the fullness of time, everybody's going to have to take some pain in this, the consumer, -
Sylvain Charlebois 11:20
Exactly.
Michael LeBlanc 11:21
The consumer, the vendor, and, and the retailer. But at the end of the day, the retailer stands between the CPG companies and the consumer and the retailer are saying I'm not, you're not passing price increases to me. And I'm going to go to somebody who wasn’t. I mean, it is a, a classic, back and forth negotiation and time immemorial. It will continue, you know, the food processors, says, listen, ‘I need to I need to up your rate’. And then grocer saying, ‘Too bad I'm not taking the price increase, I'll go-‘, you know, so it is a, you know, this is a big business $200 billion business. So, very, -
Sylvain Charlebois 11:50
Absolutely.
Michael LeBlanc 11:51
Very complex. I think we'll see, again, in the fullness of time. What's interesting to me, and you know, I, I spent some time also I brief the Bank of Canada quarterly on the retail industry, as part of my advisory practice. And we've been talking about things like well, is there enough momentum in the economy to overcome the inflation. And you look at America, for example, they released numbers today in retail sales, which includes food, they have close to 4% growth, like in like, -
Sylvain Charlebois 12:17
Yeah.
Michael LeBlanc 12:18
The sales keep coming. And what encourages me about getting through this, and not for everyone is, you know, there Royal Bank of Canada put out a report, there's 100 billion, with a "B", of incremental savings in Canadian’s bank accounts, 100 billion that's dry, -
Sylvain Charlebois 12:34
That's a lot of money.
Michael LeBlanc 12:35
For the economy. And they say that's incremental. Now, some may find its way we imagine as things open up into services and travel and everybody wants to travel.
Sylvain Charlebois 12:43
Yeah.
Michael LeBlanc 12:44
But also, some finds its way into, listen, I can take the hit on the price, because I've got this pent up or saved up, you know, the economy, in other words, at the macro level, can absorb some inflation. In other words, we'll see how much it can absorb. I mean, that's, that's ultimately, you know, the final question. So, that that's why you're not seeing the banks on either side of the border really race to increase, you know, increase the interest rates as they think they'll raise it very proportionally. But even when they raise, it's only going to be a couple of percent. Like we're, we're at, -
Sylvain Charlebois 13:14
Exactly.
Michael LeBlanc 13:15
So, I am no economist, I play one on a podcast but you know, -
Sylvain Charlebois 13:18
Yeah, and, and what really what's helping us is a strong dollar. I mean, the dollar, the Canadian dollar has been a non-story for, for almost, I guess, a year and a half now, which is, -
Michael LeBlanc 13:30
(crossover talk) And you know, that the other point is, you know, gas prices are very high, like record high. But in Canada, that's a natural hedge when Ontario people are paying high for gas, it means people in Alberta, the industry is, is doing well, like there's a natural, -
Sylvain Charlebois 13:34
Doing well, yeah.
Michael LeBlanc 13:35
There's a natural balance there, right? So, -
Sylvain Charlebois 13:48
For consumers, there's again, a bit of a, a perfect economic storm, -
Michael LeBlanc 13:49
Yeah.
Sylvain Charlebois 13:50
Unfortunately for them, energy costs are higher, lodging costs are going up, and, and food as well. And as I said earlier, I don't see how our food inflation rate will drop anytime soon. And, and we did predict that they would reach about 7% for 2022. And that's basically what's going, what's going, what, what is happening right now.
Michael LeBlanc 14:17
All right. Well, we'll come back to something you mentioned butter. We're going to come back to that after the after our interview with Xavier Poncin from SIAL.
Xavier, welcome to The Food Professor podcast. How are you doing this morning?
Xavier Poncin 14:30
I'm fine, and you?
Michael LeBlanc 14:32
I'm very well. I'm here with of course, Sylvain who you know well.
Sylvain Charlebois 14:36
Yeah, absolutely. I'm so happy to have Xavier join us today. It's, I mean, I, I want I've, I've wanted to invite him for a while but he's been busy.
Xavier Poncin 14:47
Yes, actually you're right. I am very exciting to be here, anyway, that's a good opportunity to talk about the SIAL Canada show.
Sylvain Charlebois 14:54
And you're right in the middle of planning everything. So, I we're very grateful that you, you, -
Michael LeBlanc 14:59
Yeah.
Sylvain Charlebois 14:59
You took some time to join us today.
Xavier Poncin 15:02
It's in nine weeks, nine weeks,
Michael LeBlanc 15:05
Nine weeks.
Sylvain Charlebois 15:06
Exactly.
Michael LeBlanc 15:08
Countdown you know it, you know it by the week and by the hour I know. So, thank you, thank you for making time so close to the event. But I guess the benefit is that we get the fresh what's going to happen this far out so we get some great insights.
So, listen let's start with a little bit about yourself. So, tell us tell the listeners about yourself and what you do at SIAL.
Xavier Poncin 15:30
I know it's, it's always a bit complicated to, to, to speak about ourselves, but I, I, I'm born and raised in Paris, France.
Sylvain Charlebois 15:41
And we forgive you for that, we'll forgive you for that Xavier.
Xavier Poncin 15:47
And actually, I discovered the, the trade show industry just I, I will say by mistake. I was working for a telemar-, telemarketing company and, and discovered I was working for a trade show at the time for the telemarketing company that I was working with. And, and, and at the time and, and I discovered this industry by being there. We were just promoting a new show a new, new launching show with my team and then the director of the show said, ‘Okay, you did a great job, I would like to hire you’, and, and, and I was just 25 years old. And, and since it's been 27 years, -
Michael LeBlanc 16:32
Wow, wow.
Xavier Poncin 16:33
In the tradeshow industry doing a lot of things. You know, it's, it's, it's some-, it’s an industry that nobody knows, really. And, and, and everybody's going to trade shows or events and so on. But they don't know exactly how we do that. Sometimes you say, okay, it's the SIAL Canada is done. So, now you're on vacation for six months. I said, ‘No, we have launched the show. the next, the next show’, (crossover talk) -
Michael LeBlanc 16:59
Yeah, on vacation for 24 hours, you get 24 hours rest.
Xavier Poncin 17:03
Exactly, because and even then, even more because we always launched a new show,
Michael LeBlanc 17:09
Yeah.
Xavier Poncin 17:10
One month before the show, the current show. So, it's always like a, a circle, going on and going on, and going on, and going on. So, yeah, (crossover talk) 27 years that I arrived in Canada in, in, in the, in the end of the winter of 2008 to take over the position as a CEO of the Expo Canada France company, which is the organizer of, of SIAL Canada. Expo Canada France is actually a, a company shared by three shareholders, I should say, the Groupe Export agroalimentaire from Quebec, and the grocer, Independent Grocers of Quebec called A.D.A., and obviously, Comexposium, the owner of the SIAL brand, based in France.
Michael LeBlanc 18:01
And then so that’s what brought you to Canada that you were moved you, you had the opportunity to take the leadership role here is that that’s what brought you to Montreal, right?
Xavier Poncin 18:04
Exactly.
Michael LeBlanc 18:05
You are based in Montreal, yes?
Xavier Poncin 18:06
Yes of course. Yeah, that's with the SIAL, SIAL Montreal at the time, there was only one show and the show was created in 2001. Thanks to the partnership of the shareholders, but also the support of the (inaudible). And agri-, Agriculture and Agri-Food Canada at that time. And Montreal as well, we had some kind of an agreement signed in my office with the former Mayor of Montreal. I think it was Rene Bourque, if I remind well.
And so, it's, it was in 2001, there was, that's funny, I arrived obviously at the end of (inaudible) 2008 but I think that we, we had some difficulties at the time when I arrived. The show was declining. And that's why we decided to change a little bit of the strategy. The show was becoming more and more Quebecois and this is not the branding of SIAL, normally you know the branding of SIAL is getting more international and more, and more (crossover Talk),
Sylvain Charlebois 19:07
More globalized, yeah.
Xavier Poncin 19:09
More globalized. So, I had two years to, to find a strategy to redevelop the brand. So, with the, with the shareholders and the French company, Comexposium, we decided to change the name to SIAL Canada in 2010 and launched a new show in Toronto. And since then, we have actually leave before the pandemic. It was like a dream come true, we were having a 120% of growth, -
Michael LeBlanc 19:29
Wow.
Xavier Poncin 19:38
Since 2010. So, it's an average of close to a 15% growth every year. So, it was going well. I mean, everything was going well and 2020 was also becoming the, the best show that we ever had. We were supposed to have a two-story show in, in Palais des Congres, when March 12th everything shut down. So, -
Michael LeBlanc 20:01
Yeah, yeah.
Xavier Poncin 20:02
It's been now three years without any revenue, and, and three years without any shows. So, we are very excited with all the decisions made by the government, federal and provincial. It's very easing, easing, can we say easing our minds, I should say, I mean it's, relaxed to be (inaudible), -
Sylvain Charlebois 20:23
You can feel that really things are, are going our way here.
Michael LeBlanc 20:27
Yeah.
Xavier Poncin 20:28
Exactly, exactly. So, we are very exciting to open the show in, (crossover talk), in April, -
Sylvain Charlebois 20:32
You did run a couple of shows online in the fall of 2020 and in, -
Xavier Poncin 20:38
Yes.
Sylvain Charlebois 20:39
September, 2021, as well, right?
Xavier Poncin 20:40
Yes, yes. That, that was the 2020 show that we had was something that we were in some way forced to do because we were trying to postpone the show in September. But everything was not moving the direction that we were, we were want-, we were wanting. And, and, and we decided to create a new virtual show.
Xavier Poncin 21:04
At the end of the day, that was a good idea. The content was great, I, I mean, even we, we had more people watching the conferences that we had on-site before. I think we tripled the number of people thanks to the virtual content and Sylvain, you were involved in that. And, and, and that was great. We even increased the number of countries visiting the, the show and the content. But at the end of the day, and that's the feedback of the tradeshow industry, even the events industry. Virtual is good, to obviously, to increase your, your authority and, and your brand awareness. That's great, -
Michael LeBlanc 21:48
Yeah.
Xavier Poncin 21:49
But for the business it's not what the exhibitors are expecting them in (inaudible). It, it was not that good. And that's why we decided to come back to just the content in 2021. Sylvain was there, Dana McCauley, (inaudible) and, and other, other people (inaudible) were involved. But that was just half a day of content, because we know that that's the only, I, I think that's the only thing that works great in the virtual world, not the business.
Michael LeBlanc 22:21
Yeah. Let's, let's, -
Sylvain Charlebois 22:22
Absolutely.
Michael LeBlanc 22:23
Talk about that, let's, let's talk unpack that a little bit because for those who've never been to SIAL, or maybe you are hearing about it for the first time, I understand it, and I have not been to SIAL, so, I'm very excited to go. By the way, what's the date that what, give us the date, (crossover talk), -
Sylvain Charlebois 22:37
Actually, didn't realize Michael, that you've never been to SIAL,
Michael LeBlanc 22:40
I've never been.
Sylvain Charlebois 22:41
Wow.
Michael LeBlanc 22:42
I've never been.
Xavier Poncin 22:44
Michael you will be more than, than welcome. And, and I'm happy to have the podcast on-live on the on the show that will be very exciting to have Sylvain and yourself interviewing people from, from the industry. But the show is April 20, to April 22, in Montreal, Palais des Congres, (crossover talk), -
Michael LeBlanc 23:05
A great venue, -
Xavier Poncin 23:06
Yes.
Michael LeBlanc 23:06
A great venue I've done, I've done events myself for Retail Council of Canada in that venue. So, it's a wonderful, wonderful venue.
So, again, for those who've never been, I have an idea of what it is. Tell us about the show. There's a thought leadership piece where people are talking about the industry but the, the meat and potatoes so to speak of the show is really, as I understand it, an opportunity for people who make food to put it on display, to cook it, to get it ready, to entice buyers, is that your audience I suspect?
Xavier Poncin 23:35
Yes.
Michael LeBlanc 23:36
To go find and discover new foods.
Xavier Poncin 23:38
So, I'm going to come back a little bit about the story of SIAL, the SIAL brand. First of all, the SIAL Network is the largest food innovation network in the world. We have nine leading, nine leading B2B tradesho-, B2B shows, events worldwide. And, and that would represent 17,000 exhibitors coming from 120 countries, 700 different visitors coming from 200 countries. We have the largest, I should say, industry, food industry database in the world when you look at what we have now. And yes, we, the, the, the first show was created in 64 in Paris, and that's one of the largest shows in the world. Sylvain has been there once I guess or twice, -
Sylvain Charlebois 24:31
Yeah.
Xavier Poncin 24:32
And, and we had also created another show in China in 2001, in Shanghai. And there is a newborn actually in 2022, which is China South in Shenzhen. We will have one show in Abu Dhabi created in 2010, one in Jakarta in Indonesia called SIAL Food, SIAL Inter-Food, in 2017. In the, in the in 2019, we created the show in India. And obviously we had the SIAL Canada in 2001 in Montreal and 2011, the launching of the SIAL Canada in Toronto. So, it, it, it's been, it's been a great story, as I said, and, and, and, and yes, the show is representing the industry. And what I can, if I summarize a little bit, it would be the SIAL Canada show is, is it will be a little bit less than we used to have because first of all, we, we, didn't know exactly how the international, international, -
Michael LeBlanc 25:28
Sure, Sure.
Xavier Poncin 25:29
Presentation would work. But you know, the SIAL brand is all about innovation, international and local to see the three pillars of our history. It's also the SIAL Canada show is also the, the only western one-stop shop in North America. Why we call it a one-stop shop? Because, first of all, we obviously the core business of the SIAL is the retail, but we also develop the full-service industry it is targeted (inaudible) targeting older restaurant owners, but also all the, the purchasing group from the food service industry like the GMS, the Cisco of this world and so on. And, -
Michael LeBlanc 26:06
Yeah.
Xavier Poncin 26:07
We also have a lot of importers coming to the show, because we have 50% of our, of our exhibitors are coming from abroad. This show we will have around 40 countries, but we used to have 55 to 60 countries who are represented to the show. So, we hope that in 2022, 2023, and 2024, will come back to some, some kind of normality in this aspect. But as I said, we have a lot of importers coming in and discovering new products from worldwide.
Xavier Poncin 26:35
And, and, and the last thing is it, it's not something that sometimes we overlooked about it, it's also the food processing industry visiting the show for with three main objectives. First of all, you have the big CPGs, all the CPGs are walking the show, and they want to they want to see the trends, they want to see the innovation and, and some, some, somehow some, sometimes they want obviously to (inaudible) some companies that could be included in their, in their group. Also in the food processing industry, you have to obviously the ingredients buyers, because we have a lot to offer, in this case, in this aspect as well.
Xavier Poncin 27:16
And the, the, the last thing is for us to invite companies to say okay, it's, it's this type of show for your own business, so, we, invite our leads I should say to visit the show and say and take the, and take the positive vibe to have them the, the year after. So, it's what I say it's a one stop shop also because there is also the second part of equipment. It's not only food, we have 80% of food, -
Michael LeBlanc 27:33
Oh, okay.
Xavier Poncin27:44
In Montreal, but we have also 20% dedicated to the packaging industry and dedicated what we call to the (inaudible) tread, trend sorry. (Inaudible) meaning all the equipment dedicated to the food service industry in the, in the, in the store, (crossover talk), in equipment as well. So, it's basically the only, it's a one of kind, in North America. And that's why I believe that we differentiate ourselves from the others by having this international offer, -
Michael LeBlanc 28:14
One last thing, you move back and forth between Toronto and Montreal, right? So, 2023 would be in Toronto and, and, and so on, yeah?
Xavier Poncin 28:21
Yes, in the beginning of May, we'll be in Toronto at the Enercare Centre. And, and this is interesting because we, we do have the same brand but, but we have we do have also two different shows. Montreal is more about, I should say, the, we have more restaurant owners, it's more dedicated to the food ser-, service industry the, the actual to the gourmet type of the mo-, Montreal, the what represents Montreal actually in North America, the gourmet capital and so on.
Xavier Poncin 28:53
And Toronto is more about ethnicities. We have more international, I should say international countries in Toronto than we have in Montreal. Not necessarily more, but a different type of countries coming at Toronto, than, than the one in Montreal. So, that's interesting, we have, we are more of a European style in Montreal, we are more Asian African, Middle Eastern type in Toronto. And it's ,it's, it's a bit like, you know, the landscape of the two cities in, in history as well. It's, it's interesting, because we always say that the SIAL brand is the same, but at the end of the day, whatever you do, whatever your strategy is, there is always a different atmosphere in Toronto and Montreal.
Sylvain Charlebois 29:42
Out west, Western Canada, there's lots going on right now, but it's more on the ingredient side. I would say. It's not retailable innovation as you would see at SIAL, Montreal and Toronto for sure. So, I, I agree with you Xavier.
Now, of course our lab we're very busy right now. We're preparing for, for SIAL ourselves. We're, we're going to be presenting fresh data to, to the SIAL audience in April in Montreal.In terms of innovation, what, wha-, where we, how are we seeing food and, and some of the things that people are thinking about when it comes to the future of food. So, I'm, we're pretty excited to be part of SIAL in the spring.
So, but as a CEO of SIAL, what are your expectations this year? And once you're done on April 22nd - 23rd, how would you define success for this year coming back from two years of a, of, of, of virtualness, I guess?
Xavier Poncin 30:47
Always a good question. Because there is obviously a lot of KPIs that we are using to, to see the success or, or meet, I should say an average success, or a failure is the survey that we do after the show. Obvious-, obviously, the main, the main KPI that we are looking for is the satisfaction from the visitors and the exhibitor’s standpoint.
Xavier Poncin 31:17
We have obviously different questions that we are but we are using some kind of calculation to define the success and satisfaction has always been something that we are highlighting. And, and SIAL Canada, I think the last 10 years has not been under 85% of satisfaction, than the (inaudible) for addition was around 94%, 95% for the visitors and the exhibitors.
Xavier Poncin 31:47
So, for us, it's, it's ,it's a good way to measure the success. It's always difficult for, for us to also to, to have more than that, because we used to talk, to ask the exhibitors and visitors, what is their, the business they have done with the, I mean in dollars. But as you can imagine, nobody answers that exam, it's (crossover talk), -
Sylvain Charlebois 32:12
Yeah, probably not know.
Xavier Poncin 32:15
The contacts now we are focusing about the contacts and, and the number of contacts and so on. And, -
Sylvain Charlebois 32:16
Yeah.
Xavier Poncin 32:20
And when they are going to do a business, they're, they're going to sign the different contract the, the with, with the people they meet during the show, if it's less than six months, less than one year, six months and one year and so on. And, and that's also the way that we measure the success is, is the number of contacts and the, and the in this actual (inaudible) less than one year. If we have like 60% of them say, saying that we will have a contract signed in the next six months, or the next year. That, that's a good sign for us.
Sylvain Charlebois 32:53
Oh, that's great. Again, we're looking forward to, to be part of SIAL 2022, in Montreal in, in nine weeks as you said and,
Xavier Poncin 33:03
Yes.
Sylvain Charlebois 33:03
How can we learn more about SIAL and yeah, we, as CEO, we will give you a chance to invite the world to, to Montreal in April.
Xavier Poncin 33:13
Everything is on obviously on the website. Where we are going to launch the prior registration, the visitors prior registration within two weeks. People will be able to obviously visit the show, pay for, for the badge but also to participate to all conference that we are, -
Sylvain Charlebois 33:33
What's the price to join to, to join the show, what, what are the costs?
Xavier Poncin 33:37
I'd say for we have an early book price which is 65%. And this is something interesting 65 the $5, I think it's 70 this year, 70. We have $5 that we are going to give to Moisson Montreal to help you know the, the food bank this year, -
Sylvain Charlebois 33:56
Wonderful. Wonderful.
Xavier Poncin 33:58
So, I like that. And all the food that we have on the show will be also given to Moisson Montreal. So, every, every people that are listening, it's if you pay for a, a ticket you also give a certain amount $5 to, to Moisson Montreal as well. So, we, we offer that to them. And we used to give them between 15 to $20,000 every time we worked with Moisson Montreal. We hope that we are, we are going to achieve the same kind of, of amount that we used to have. So, yes it's $70, and also all the conferences are cheap. I should say it's only $35 to participate to our conference. We have, we will have around 35 different conference to 35 to 40 (inaudible), Sylvain will be there and, -
Sylvain Charlebois 34:47
Absolutely.
Xavier Poncin 34:48
There will be will (inaudible) health and nutrition, packaging, groce fronts, ethnicities, a customer, (crossover talk),
Michael LeBlanc 34:58
Tell me there'll will be barbecues there, tell me there will be barbecues.
Xavier Poncin 35:01
Yes, Michael, I seen, I've seen your presentation on YouTube, but I'm not sure that we are going to talk about barbecues. But I can leave if you want a special moment for you during the conference to talk about it and present what you do.
Sylvain Charlebois 35:15
Well, listen Xavier, thank you so much for joining us on The Food Professor podcast today. And yeah, so I know you have nine weeks of hard work ahead of you.
Xavier Poncin 35:26
Yes.
Sylvain Charlebois 35:27
But we both, both Michael and I, we look forward to, to see, -
Michael LeBlanc 35:29
Yeah
Sylvain Charlebois 35:30
In person in Montreal, in a, in a few weeks.
Michael LeBlanc 35:33
Exciting.
Xavier Poncin 35:34
Yes, we welcome everybody and we hope to see everyone from the industry coming to the show that will be the place to be that the restarting of the, our industry after two years of none, three years actually, that we had the last show that we had was what we had was in 2019. So, it's, it's been three years now and we expect you, expect everyone to come to Montreal.
Michael LeBlanc 35:57
All right, we're back. And let's, let's do, let's talk about Buttergate. Buttergate redone.
Sylvain Charlebois 36:03
Yes.
Michael LeBlanc 36:04
You had a look, you had what it looks like, a worst nightmare for the industry. You keep coming back with, you know, you got, you get some research published academic research published, that you were, - (crossover talk)
Sylvain Charlebois 36:17
You know that dairy farmers, they, I don't I actually don't think they, they really will read anything, if it doesn't fit the narrative. I hate to say this, but I don't think it's going to make much of a difference. What they do is that they get, they set up working groups, and they publish reports to reassure the public, it's all about image.
Sylvain Charlebois 36:41
And this report that we released, which is our third peer reviewed journal article, and, and in the top food science journal in the world, which I'm not, which I'm an editor of, by the way, but I was not involved in the industrial process of obviously, yes, another editor was involved.
Sylvain Charlebois 37:04
And I'm not first author, either, I need to clarify that. But so, we're 8 authors working that actually did work on this project, only to basically provide evidence that, that they were data deficits. And, and the lack, and the lack of transparency was so obvious, with, with, with, Buttergate.
Sylvain Charlebois 37:36
Now, you can dispute that palm oil was played a role in making butter harder. I mean, the evidence is actually in the paper that there is a strong correlation between palmitic acid presence in butter and firmness, it's there. And there's a bunch of hypotheses including the use of palm oil, of, of course, but at the end of the day, the, the industry has never looked at the quality of the butter at retail, and it needs to do that. Now it's starting to do that. So, the Buttergate incident I think was a good thing for the dairy industry.
Sylvain Charlebois 38:06
I think they're getting organized to better surveil to better monitor the quality of products sold to Canadians. But I mean, when you go on Twitter, you can still feel that, that Canadians are discontent they're not very happy, they are very pleased with the quality of the butter that we have in Canada. Do you use a lot of butter for your recipes on your YouTube channel?
Michael LeBlanc 38:07
I do and actually, I get my butter from Lactalis, Cheese World, which ships direct and I use their, their Presidente cultured butter.
Sylvain Charlebois 38:30
Okay.
Michael LeBlanc 38:30
Which is a whole level of good butter I, I now, thanks to Cheese Wor-, not Cheese World but thanks to Buttergate and our just talking about this, I switched to either grass fed or organic butter and I noticed a com-, a big difference.
Sylvain Charlebois 38:51
Grass fed for me, yeah.
Michael LeBlanc 38:52
Yeah, I noticed a big difference of course it is a little more expensive. But I use, I just made, I made these amazing ribs I called them moms’ ribs because I, I didn't make them hot and I put pads of butter and then wrapped in aluminum foil and the flavors just were amazing. I also used our last guests they sent me some Good for, Good Food for Good. They sent me some barbecue sauce that I mixed up with maple syrup as a glaze.
Sylvain Charlebois 39:16
Oh, yeah.
Michael LeBlanc 39:16
That episode, that episode's coming up. Speaking of Trying Stuff.
Sylvain Charlebois 39:21
But I, but I just want to note that the, the, paper we just published in Trends,
Michael LeBlanc 39:26
Yeah, yeah, yeah.
Sylvain Charlebois 39:27
It was, it was possible because of the effort and support of a good friend of mine, Alex, Mer-, Maragoni from the University of Guelph he's a food scientist. He's actually a member of the Order of Canada and he's a well accomplished author. And without his lab, we wouldn't have been able to test all these, all the butter that, that we actually tested for the paper. So, thank you so much, to Alex, to the Food Science Department at the University of Guelph.
Michael LeBlanc 39:54
All right, welcome to another great segment of Trying Stuff. This time, -
Sylvain Charlebois 39:59
Trying Stuff.
Michael LeBlanc 40:00
Trying Stuff this time, we have a Montreal, Quebec based, GoGo Quinoa. Check that out GoGo Quino. -
Sylvain Charlebois 40:06
That's right.
Michael LeBlanc 40:07
And this is not your grandmother's quinoa. They've got just such a great, their fair trade, Quebec based, lots of different products look at (crossover talk), we got breakfast cereals and I made, (crossover talk). They're very generous and, -
Sylvain Charlebois 40:19
We were spoiled. (crossover talk).
Michael LeBlanc 40:21
I made this lentil pasta and vegan cheese, and into that I put oat milk, and you know, some actual butter. So, it's not really a vegan but you know, whatever. And then I'm also doing these, these cereals, look at this cereal. How fun is that.
Sylvain Charlebois 40:38
Oh, yeah.
Michael LeBlanc 40:39
How fun is that?
Sylvain Charlebois 40:40
Looks nice, I actually, so this is, so this is the one that I'm trying the cereal.
Michael LeBlanc 40:45
Okay.
Sylvain Charlebois 40:46
And, and this is how it looks. I haven't put the milk in yet, but this is how it looks.
Michael LeBlanc 40:52
All right.
Sylvain Charlebois 40:53
So, I'll put the milk, just before I taste it. So, it gets crunchy, I like crunchy cereals.
Michael LeBlanc 40:59
Well, I'm going try. I'm so I'm having the strawberry.
Sylvain Charlebois 41:00
So, are you trying cereals first?
Michael LeBlanc 41:02
Yeah, I'm going to try cereals first. Now this is strawberry flavored one. I left the package upstairs, but I think I showed it at the beginning.
Sylvain Charlebois 41:09
Yeah, so the ones that I'm trying is oats and quinoa.
Michael LeBlanc 41:12
Ah, all right.
Sylvain Charlebois 41:14
Let's try this.
Michael LeBlanc 41:15
Let's give it a go. Cheers. Now that's actually good. I'm not a big breakfast cereal guy but nice flavor not overwhelming. A strawberry but not cloying, nice and light. And I again in this I used, I used oat milk.
Sylvain Charlebois 41:30
This is I don't know about yours but mine is super crunchy.
Michael LeBlanc 41:35
Now mine too and I put my milk in, -
Sylvain Charlebois 41:37
As I'm eating. I can barely hear you.
Michael LeBlanc 41:41
I'm crunching into the microphone.
Sylvain Charlebois 41:44
Mmmmm
Michael LeBlanc 41:45
Mmm, that's really good.
Sylvain Charlebois 41:49
Super tasty. So, the kids couldn't wait. They actually destroyed the box. Oh, yeah.
Michael LeBlanc 41:56
Oh yeah.
Sylvain Charlebois 41:57
And they loved it. They loved it. And so, I told him don't eat all of it because I need to do the show.
Michael LeBlanc 42:02
There's a show to do here, I got to go, I got a show to do. ‘Oh, dad, you and your show’. All right, now I'm going have these and this, smells amazing the GoGo Quino, -
Sylvain Charlebois 42:13
Yeah, I know.
Michael LeBlanc 42:14
Lentil pasta. You know, you got to know I'm while I might not eat a lot of breakfast cereal. I, I eat a lot of pasta. So, this is going to be a real test because, -
Sylvain Charlebois 42:22
I know.
Michael LeBlanc 42:23
I like, I like that.
Sylvain Charlebois 42:24
And so, it took you what, 4 minutes? It took us 4 minutes to prepare.
Michael LeBlanc 42:26
Yeah, the one thing, -
Sylvain Charlebois 42:27
That's it. (crossover talk).
Michael LeBlanc 42:28
If you're trying this, the one thing pay attention because it's not like Kraft Dinner, it's 2 minutes, 2 to 3 minutes.
Sylvain Charlebois 42:34
Exactly.
Michael LeBlanc 42:35
You do more than that you're probably going to have some pretty mushy pasta. So,
Sylvain Charlebois 42:38
2 minutes for al dente.
Michael LeBlanc 42:40
2 minutes, 2-3 for al dente but, -
Sylvain Charlebois 42:43
Yeah.
Michael LeBlanc 42:44
Which is what I did, here's what that looks like.
Sylvain Charlebois 42:45
Looks lovely, wow.
Michael LeBlanc 42:47
You're ha-, you're having the shells and vegan cheese.
Sylvain Charlebois 42:50
I'm having the shells and vegan cheese. That's right.
Michael LeBlanc 42:53
All right, (inaudible)
Sylvain Charlebois 42:54
Because I knew you were trying the other so, -
Michael LeBlanc 42:55
All right, let's tuck in, let's give this a try.
Sylvain Charlebois 42:57
Okay.
Michael LeBlanc 42:58
That's really good.
Sylvain Charlebois 42:59
Mmmm.
Michael LeBlanc 43:00
It's delicious really, like if you put this in front of me and said I made you pasta. I wouldn't, like grain pasta, I wouldn't know the difference.
Sylvain Charlebois 43:08
Yeah, no, no it's very tasty.
Michael LeBlanc 43:10
You know, I probably could have put a bit more, more oat milk to make it more saucy. But that's a bit of experimentation, you never know how things go.
Sylvain Charlebois 43:18
But it's not, it's not, you know when you eat mac-, macaroni and cheese. It's the taste is, is fat a little bit, you know, you have to add extra stuff. You don't need to add anything, -
Michael LeBlanc 43:29
No.
Sylvain Charlebois 43:30
In this, it's tasty enough. Like it, it offers you a lot of different flavors, yeah.
Michael LeBlanc 43:35
The flavors really come through. I'm very, like it's funny, people are saying you say this all the time, I get them. I'm so pleasantly surprised by the taste and the flavor. It's just,-
Sylvain Charlebois 43:38
Oh Yeah.
Michael LeBlanc 43:39
(inaudible) really, it's just delicious vegan cheese. So, it's not even, you know, again, I'm not a vegan cheese eater. But ‘A’ if you put this in front of me, I wouldn't know any of that. It's just delicious food.
Sylvain Charlebois 44:00
I'm just wondering why, like they went with shells and not macaroni or something else. I'm just intrigued by that. But because shells (crossover talk) are not necessarily the most popular form right for pasta.
Michael LeBlanc 44:11
Well, maybe they're just staying out of the way of Kraft Dinner. right? Which is a very traditional, -
Sylvain Charlebois 44:14
Probably.
Michael LeBlanc 44:15
They want to be a little less traditional.
Sylvain Charlebois 44:17
Probably.
Michael LeBlanc 44:18
I don't know maybe, maybe if anyone from Quin-, GoGo Quinoa, our friends are, are watching or listening just please comment and maybe tell us why the choice of the, of the pasta design maybe that's, (inaudible), -
Sylvain Charlebois 44:30
So, it's a there's a lot of certifications that goes with the brand. You got non-GMO, pla-, plant-based,you got, (crossover talk) gluten free, it's organic. I mean there's lots of stuff going on here.
Michael LeBlanc 44:45
Lots going on.
Sylvain Charlebois 44:46
It's so easy to cook, very quick and yeah, -
Michael LeBlanc 44:50
Yeah.
Sylvain Charlebois 44:51
In a second your you got a meal, which is awesome.
Michael LeBlanc 44:54
You know it just, I just you know it's a great, it's a great product to actually have on an episode where were talking about, we just listened to SIAL about food innovation and,
Sylvain Charlebois 45:01
Yeah.
Michael LeBlanc 45:02
You know, because it's very innovative food. The packaging is wonderful, it's fun, Canadian based, doing great work on both sides of the border actually. So, there's another thing like they've got a US, great presence in the US, great distribution, -
Sylvain Charlebois 45:14
Yeah.
Michael LeBlanc 45:15
it's great to see, if you like any of these things you like pasta, you like lentils, you like, you know, of course they have their regular quinoa. All (crossover talk) quinoa, -
Sylvain Charlebois 45:21
Yeah, we actually tried that. It was, -
Michael LeBlanc 45:22
Oh Yeah
.Sylvain Charlebois 45:23
It was very, very, yeah, we had tried it already and it was very good. Absolutely. Yeah, -
Michael LeBlanc 45:27
Orga-, organic plant-based, I guess (crossover talk), -
Sylvain Charlebois 45:30
Now, we were, we were spoiled by GoGo Quinoa. They sent us a lot of food. So, we're very, -
Michael LeBlanc 45:32
Yeah.
Sylvain Charlebois 45:36
Very thankful for that.
Michael LeBlanc 45:37
Very thankful.
Sylvain Charlebois 45:38
But I mean going back to our discussion about supply chain disruptions, I guess, you know, when you think about CPG companies, you know, what we're basica-, what we're looking at around the world, boycotting retailers saying, ‘Well, we can't charge more’. Well, this actually, because of the supply chain economics, I actually think that some of these products have a better shot. Because the last thing you want as a grocer is to have empty shelves. And so you may actually decide to occupy, you know, basically get new skus to occupy some of your shelves with new products.
Michael LeBlanc 46:13
Sorry, I just keep eating it. Keep talking, I am just eating. Now, listen, it's really good. It shows, you know, value added innovation. Congratulations to, to our friends at GoGo Quinoa and that was another episode of ‘Trying Stuff’.
Sylvain Charlebois 46:32
With a full mouth.
Michael LeBlanc 46:33
With a full mouth, talking with our mouthful, I think we're allowed to do that.
All right, let's bring it home. It's been a great episode, lots talk about, lots going on. And a reminder to everyone, check out our YouTube site. And join us if you're in the industry, come by, we're going to have a booth we’re the official podcast of the SIAL conference. We're going to be sitting there, we're going to be reaching out to some of you listeners, doing interviews. Sylvain and will be in person for a couple days it's going to be wonderful.
Sylvain Charlebois 46:56
Yeah.
Michael LeBlanc 46:57
We'll be set-up, come see and us drop by. It's going to be a fantastic couple of days. I'm really looking forward to seeing you Sylvain, -
Sylvain Charlebois 47:02
Absolutely.
Michael LeBlanc 47:04
It's a highlight for me. So, let's wrap it up there. Thanks again for watching, and listening. And if you, please subscribe, We're on all the major podcast platforms. I'm Michael LeBlanc, Maven Media, and a bunch of other things.
Sylvain Charlebois 47:10
And I'm Sylvain Charlebois, The Food Professor.
Michael LeBlanc 47:21
All right everyone, have a great week. Be safe and see you next time.
Sylvain Charlebois 47:26
Take care.
SUMMARY KEYWORDS
Montreal, Canada, industry, Sylvain, food, butter, talk, border, people, Michael, pasta, quinoa, Toronto, CPG companies, listen, bit, GoGo, retailer