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. 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 discussion also included allegations of fraudulent cooking oil from China and Starbucks' challenges.
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
Michael LeBlanc 00:05
Welcome to The Food Professor podcast, presented by Caddle, season 4, episode 32. I'm Michael LeBlanc.
Sylvain Charlebois 00:11
And I'm The Food Professor, Sylvain Charlebois.
Michael LeBlanc 00:15
Our guest on this episode is Professor Tony Walker, one of the world's most influential environmental scientists joining us on the show this week to discuss plastics in the food industry and in the food chain. He recently released a new study, that would make it a recent study, in prestigious science. Now, we talked about this survey when it was released a couple of weeks ago, and this is our chance for our listeners and for us, it was our chance to go deeper into what is happening in our environment, plastics and Professor Walker's findings. So, and he's a colleague of yours right, he's-, he's at Dall'?
Sylvain Charlebois 00:50
Right here at Dall', like he's a co-author. I think there are over 15 co-authors on this study, it's a comprehensive study over five years, 84 countries and I was really glad that he was available to join us because he's a very, very busy guy, but that study, which is actually published in Science, no less, absolutely-
Michael LeBlanc 01:11
And that for those people who don't know, kind of like myself, that's, that's a deal-, that's a big deal?
Sylvain Charlebois 01:15
That's a big deal. Yeah, the impact factor of science is, I think, around 40, if not higher.
Michael LeBlanc 01:22
I don't know what that means. What does that mean?
Sylvain Charlebois 01:24
Well, it's basically one of the highest in the world, basically. I'm the editor of trends in food science and technology. That's the highest in food science in the world and our impact factor is 15.
Michael LeBlanc 01:34
And where does an impact factor measure in that context?
Sylvain Charlebois 01:38
So, I'd say probably the top three in the world would be nature and science and I mean, in medicine, of course, the New England Journal of Medicine is certainly up there as well. So those are the journals that you would actually hear a lot as a, as a consumer, as a person who is not in science.
Michael LeBlanc 01:56
That's the measuring factor, the influential factor.
Sylvain Charlebois 01:59
If you publish in science and you're not tenured, that-, that-, that fixes things.
Michael LeBlanc 02:08
We get right back or put you on the track for tenure.
Sylvain Charlebois 02:12
I mean, you can only-, you only need one publication in five years, you get tenured, and you get promoted. That's basically how significant a publication in science is, yeah.
Michael LeBlanc 02:22
Wow. All right. Well, we'll-, we'll get to that interview coming up in a little bit. Only seven sleeps until you and I are together at SIAL in Montreal. We are the official podcast of the show and we'll be releasing a couple of episodes right after.
Michael LeBlanc 02:37
Booth 807.
Sylvain Charlebois 02:37
Booth 807.
Sylvain Charlebois 02:38
Come join us, yeah.
Michael LeBlanc 02:39
I think-, I think we're back-to-back with the innovation booth again. So that's a nice draw.
Sylvain Charlebois 02:44
Exactly. Yeah.
Michael LeBlanc 02:46
So come find us there. I'm hosting a fantastic panel on retail and brand innovation. you're hosting a panel as well.
Sylvain Charlebois 02:52
Yeah, your panel is berserk. Tell us more about the panel.
Michael LeBlanc 02:54
We have Stewart Samuel from IGD. So, he's the, the analyst in the room, so to speak, we've got Jamie from Patterson food group, which many people would know is Save On Foods in the West Coast as the operator, the retailer, we got Diane Brisebois representing the retail side, the association side and Michael Graydon is the other side of the coin to Diane, so to speak, representing the brand.
Michael LeBlanc 03:17
So, you know, a full circle, 360-degree examination of-. You know one of the things I want to talk about is, you know, innovation is so important. I mean, it's the lifeblood of the SIAL show, but there's this-, there's a mixed track record of success coming, not just from that show, but just you know, there's a lot of products released all the time, a lot of innovative things, but they don't all hit and in fact, the record is pretty thin, right, and I'm just very curious as to how, you know, how the groceries think about that, how the brands think about that, how Stewart thinks about the innovations happening in retail stores and formats and the way people shop. So, I don't know, I think we're gonna need like four or five hours, but we only get 40 minutes, it's going to be action packed.
Sylvain Charlebois 04:00
But I think with the-, with the panel you have, I think the approach is going to be quite realistic, which is what you want, right?
Michael LeBlanc 04:07
Yeah, exactly.
Sylvain Charlebois 04:08
Sometimes at SIAL you have some dreamers, they go on stage, they tell everyone, everything is possible, think Big consumers want this, consumers want that, you’re gonna make a lot of money because people want to save the planet and they want to do this, they want to do that. They want to travel in their own kitchen, whatever. Now, those are the things sometimes you hear and it's great to dream but once in a while, especially right now you want to be as realistic as possible.
Michael LeBlanc 04:33
Yeah, it's that last third part that ‘make a lot of money’ part, that's the hard part, right? I mean, consumers want a lot of things, but what will they pay for it and you know, in fact, last year's winner of the Innovation Award for the show, had to fold up the business. It was an innovative product, but it just was not-
Sylvain Charlebois 04:49
You're right, it was a wonderful product.
Michael LeBlanc 04:51
Fantastic product, it just was not-
Sylvain Charlebois 04:52
Wonderful leader, one of her entrepreneurs, she, actually, was on our show. It was great.
Michael LeBlanc 04:56
That's right.
Sylvain Charlebois 04:57
Yeah.
Michael LeBlanc 04:57
Yeah, it had-, it had all the right things. In the formula, but you know, the alchemy did not come together. It was not a commercial success.
Sylvain Charlebois 05:03
And who knows, maybe in five years from now you launch the same exact product, and it becomes a huge success over many years. You never know, like food is really tough. It's a tough-
Michael LeBlanc 05:13
Food is tough. Food is tough.
Sylvain Charlebois 05:14
Yeah.
Michael LeBlanc 05:15
Alright. Well, let's-, let's get into the news. I want to, if I could, ask you to update us on this H5N1 bird flu and US dairy because as you know, literally ripped from the headlines on like, it was Saturday, the Globe and Mail was reporting that the Canadian-, our agencies are paying closer attention. What do you know and what does it mean?
Sylvain Charlebois 05:36
So basically, I have three words for you, right now tests, tests and tests. All right, basically. So they're testing. So, dairy has been impacted, they're testing in many different states. Again, there's-, there's-, there's been one severe quote unquote, human case, that person is fine. No dairy cows have actually died as a result of the-, of this spread. They are testing for particles of the virus in milk. They did find some particles and milk but not the entire thing. So, food safety has not been compromised and now of course, they're testing on the beef side with-, with livestock and-, and products as well. And they've been testing, testing, testing quite a bit. Nothing conclusive so far.
Michael LeBlanc 06:26
It was interesting, because last week, you kind of attuned that they're discovering something that may have already been there. So, two questions, one, when we're testing, testing, testing, there's not a lot of US dairy that comes into Canada. So, I assume we're testing Canadian dairy?
Sylvain Charlebois 06:41
That's right.
Michael LeBlanc 06:41
You can correct me on that.
Sylvain Charlebois 06:42
Yeah. So on the Canadian side, of course, the CFIA just announced this week that they are testing as well, they're not doing anything with the border, because of the point he just made with dairy and apparently, the virus is impacting older cows and so when you look at beef, and cattle, which is really a big deal in Canada, and in the US, since-, since these-, these-, these animals go to-, are harvested at a younger age, risks are much, much lower. So that's good news overall, but if you actually look at beef futures, cattle futures, they're up which is always a sign that what you know, the data is not scaring the market. It's not scaring the consumer and of course many months ago you and I spoke about beef prices going up that's still not far, I actually thought a couple of months ago that because of the avian flu, we could actually see a break it's not happening we're seeing that that-, that continued increase over the last several months so yeah, the meat counter-, the meat counter is becoming incredibly expensive.
Michael LeBlanc 07:57
You kind of connected but not actually really-, what a segway is that. Did you notice that article in The Globe and Mail that was talking about the wild boar problem in Italy, they-, they were having wild boars are running rampage, that's actually a problem across-, across all the world.
Sylvain Charlebois 08:16
They're having that issue in America as well. Yeah.
Michael LeBlanc 08:19
Yeah, lots of issues but-, but they carry a particular disease that the Italians are super worried that it's going to spread to their, you know, they have such a great bespoke pork product line that they're they've called the army out to start to just shoot on site. So, what do you make of all that? Yeah, what do you make of all that? They called the military for a, for a full-on call, just shoot on sight and they're talking and they're talking about releasing wolves to eat-, to eat them as well. Like they're-, they're not messing around here. So.
Sylvain Charlebois 08:56
Yeah, no, listen well, you gotta-, you gotta-
Michael LeBlanc 09:01
What's your-, what's your reaction to this?
Sylvain Charlebois 09:04
I mean, it's not an unusual problem. It's-, it's-, in the US there are some similar reports suggesting that farmers are having a hard time with-, with wild boars but hiring wolves, yeah, that's, that's an interesting approach for sure. Yeah. I wonder how much they charge.
Michael LeBlanc 09:25
I don't know they, you know, Toronto brought in the army to clean some snow, so now the Italians are bringing in the army to cull the wild boars.
Sylvain Charlebois 09:32
I don't know if you-, if you actually get wolves to go and kill wild boars in a you know, semi urban setting. It might not end well.
Michael LeBlanc 09:43
There could be some-, some, what do they call it, collateral damage. What happened to-, what happened to Chewy the poodle? Oh, yeah, those wolves. Yeah, anyway, we jest but-
Sylvain Charlebois 09:55
I don't know, but it is a problem for sure and frankly, I don't know about you in Mississauga, but in many parts of the country, we're seeing more wild turkeys roaming around. So, -
Michael LeBlanc 10:00
Oh, interesting, interesting.
Sylvain Charlebois 10:09
Since COVID, I've made there's been less traffic and wild animals have actually spread a little bit more, I think that's what's going on right now.
Michael LeBlanc 10:17
Let's-, let's speak, I guess we're kind of in the protein section here, because Florida this month became the first US state to ban meat created by cell cultures. Now, we've had guests on the show have talked about this. There's actually, you know, not a lot of progress being made, because there's some severe scalability issues. Unlike the lab grown dairy, we had our re-milk which seems to be primed for growth, but the cell culture thing, but anyway, I guess we kind of saw-, you and I saw this common I mean, states would say like, eight, eight, you know, it's not meat in less it comes off a carcass, Alabama's following suit, I'm sure many other states and apparently you are telling me even in Canada, they're kind of looking at this closely. I'd imagine there's many lobby groups who are very interested in making sure that this happens. It's a little bit of science fiction right now, But, you know, if it's if they get the legislation, and now it kind of, you know, kills the, you know, basically kills the industry in the crib, right?
Sylvain Charlebois 11:16
Yeah, absolutely. And I do expect some pushback from the cane beef industry, for sure. Dairy is-, is unclear with re-milk, because re-milk as-, as it was mentioned on our show is going to be aiming at the ingredient space, non-retail space. When you actually cultivate meat in a lab, you're-, you're going to be selling a product raw to the public, so they kind of need to know where it comes from. So that problem is retailable and of course, it could be contested as well, my guess.
So, we-, we heard from, from Florida, my guess next will be Texas, Alabama, those southern states are probably going to have some issues with that-, with that type of technology and-, and frankly, I mean, in our surveys, we see it like a lot of people just don't see the potential, they just wouldn't eat. Except for the younger generations, you can see that millennials, and Gen Zs are more interested and more engaged, but the older folks aren't. So, I think over time, we may actually see more traction with this technology, but for now, there's I mean, the lobby is well organized, and they're going to be pushing back real hard on both sides of the border, I think.
Michael LeBlanc 12:37
Grupo Bimbo closing the Quebec plant in Levi. Tell me about it.
Sylvain Charlebois 12:42
Yeah. So again, disturbing, I think it's the third or fourth food manufacturing plant closing in Canada in the last six months and so this is always a bad sign and frankly, well, this is exactly what we saw in December. This is what we're seeing in the market. Food prices are coming down putting more pressure on retailers, manufacturing, and so costs will absolutely be an issue and so they're consolidating. I mean, Grupo Bimbo did announce that it was-, it was closing the Levi plant, it did say that they had-, they had capacity elsewhere, but as soon as you actually do that, there's just less capacity.
Sylvain Charlebois 13:23
I'm very concerned about food manufacturing, to be honest. I know a lot of people out there want lower food prices; they want good deals. That's great, sure, but be careful what you wish for because that pressure just hits the entire food industry. Overtime. SIAL is about creating growth. It's about generating growth, but I think over that over the next six months to a year, it's going to be extremely, extremely tough for the food industry, for retailers, for manufacturers and I wouldn't be surprised if this comes up with-, with your panel on the future of food with Diane, Michael and Stewart.
Michael LeBlanc 14:02
Yeah, in fact, I'm sure it will right the future of manufacturing in Canada particularly versus elsewhere.
Sylvain Charlebois 14:09
The sector is anemic, we should do much better if you want to control-, if you want to control the supply chain, you have to have a strong manufacturing sector. As soon as you have a strong manufacturing sector it becomes much easier to support farmers to innovate and support grocers at the same time.
Michael LeBlanc 14:26
Well, let's get to our interview with Professor Tony Walker and talk about his amazing plastic study in science, but first, we're gonna hear from our presenting sponsor Caddle.
Michael LeBlanc 14:36
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Tony, welcome to The Food Professor podcast How are you doing this afternoon?
Tony Walker 15:28
Not bad, not bad. Thanks for inviting me.
Michael LeBlanc 15:32
Well, thanks for joining us, Sylvain and I on the pod. Your study came up in our discussion a couple of weeks ago and Sylvain had the brilliant idea, well, let's get the study's author on and let's talk more about it because it's really interesting. We only barely scratched the surface. So, again, thanks for coming on and why don't we start with a little bit about you, who are you and what do you do for a living, and what's your specialty and-, and tell us and listeners a little bit about yourself?
Tony Walker 15:59
Yeah. So, I'm a Prof. at Dalhousie. So, I'm a colleague of Sylvain’s. I'm in the Faculty of Science and in a-, in a small school called the School for Resource and Environmental studies. I've worked a lot in environmental pollution. So conventional chemicals, PCBs, Mercury industrial sites and more recently, certainly in the last decade, I've been heavily involved in plastic pollution and policies to help, you know, curb plastic pollution, and also even more recently, microplastics pollution in the environment.
Michael LeBlanc 16:39
Now, are you a chemist by background, are you a policy prof, what-, what-, what's your specialty, what's your training?
Tony Walker 16:46
None of the above and in fact, I have no specialty, all my degrees-, all my degrees are in biology, actually, but I've done a lot of environmental pollution and environmental remediation, you know, throughout my professional and academic career and so yeah, I think cleaning up impacted sites and you know, plastic pollution is just another example of human impact on the environment, unfortunately.
Michael LeBlanc 17:14
Were you always wanting to be a scientist, was science always in your background? Is that something you always aspired to do?
Tony Walker 17:21
I always enjoyed working with nature, observing nature, you know, growing my own vegetables. In fact, I used to do a lot of vegetable gardening from the age of five, actually, with my-, with my grandfather. So yeah, as I spent my early formative years nurturing, and growing in my own veg, and that was in the UK, not here in Canada. So, our growing season started slightly earlier.
Sylvain Charlebois 17:49
I did not know that about you, Tony. So again, thank you so much for joining on The Food Professor podcasts.
For our listeners out there, I've actually published with-, with Tony Walker. He's a researcher that I admire very much. He's not only very prolific from a scientific perspective, but he's an incredible communicator, I would say he's probably one of the most well-known environmental scientists in the world and, of course, this is a food podcast and your latest study, which was published in Science Advances called, ‘Global producer responsibility for plastic pollution’ caught our attention, obviously, because it was very much about the food industry without being the focus on the food industry became a focus clearly, the study and so I want to congratulate you on publishing in a such a prestigious journal. I mean, science is, I would say-, I would say, one of the top journals in the world. Tell us-, tell us a little bit about the study itself. When did it start and what was the methodology behind it?
Tony Walker 18:59
Yeah, well, the study has actually been ongoing even before I got involved in the project. So, 2018 to 2022. I got on board around '21, '22 with this group of international researchers, but in terms of the methodology, and in fact, one of the reasons that brought all these co-authors together, was the methodology is very similar to beach cleanups or shoreline cleanups that many of your listeners have probably participated on or, you know, are familiar with, but those surveys differ because they tend to characterize the waste or the litter that they find, such as, oh, this I'll put this into the bottle category, or the straw category or the plastic bag. So rather than categorizing the individual items, a focus of a brand audit differs in that the kind of imagery and the branding information on a-, on a piece of letter found in the environment. That is the thing that's logged and the methodology standard, if you can pick it up and it's 5 milliliters.
Sylvain Charlebois 20:14
You're measuring the source instead of the actual product.
Tony Walker 20:18
That's right. Yeah. So like, yeah. Sometimes it's not even the writing that happens to be on a product, even if you know, very famous branding symbols can be enough to identify who the manufacturer or original producer was.
Sylvain Charlebois 20:34
The fascinating part for us, obviously, when you look at top brands that were measured in your study, I mean, you have Coca-Cola. You have Nestle, you have also PepsiCo, Danone. These are top brands, were you surprised by these results, Tony?
Tony Walker 20:56
No. So myself and other researchers on the-, on the paper, we, we'd already long suspected, because I mean, these are-, these branded survey audits are conducted around the world and we always get like, you know, sometimes here for the great Canadian shoreline cleanup, we talk about the Dirty Dozen. So, cigarette butts being number one, and then other things like straws and bags and bottles, you know, in the top-, top five. So, we've long suspected the big producers, the big corporations, because we've done and also break free from plastic, which is an environmental ENGO had done these surveys in the past, but what we didn't realize and what we were surprised to find that there was little variation on these top brands, irrespective of geography. So, whether these audits were done in Indonesia, or done in Canada, or the US, the-, the agreement, and the-, the kind of high-profile list was-, was the same around the world. So, these are-, these are-, these global companies have clearly global reach and impact.
Sylvain Charlebois 22:04
In your study, you've covered 84 countries over five years. For people out there that may, you know, question your methodology, what would you say to them, I mean, you when you look at the-, the scope of the study, it's quite-, it's quite impressive. What would you say to the people who actually would question the validity of your findings?
Tony Walker 22:30
Yeah. Well, you know, this, the scientific rigor, and the data analysis, and the subsequent statistics in this study is absolutely rock solid. It's watertight. In fact, the lead author is internationally recognized for data, big data management and data analysis, Win Cowger is the lead author, and he specializes in making data publicly available, meta-, meta data analysis, but yeah, for any critiques of the study, what I would like to point out, the-, how comprehensive this is, those 84 countries, you mentioned, represent approximately 6.5 billion people on the planet, which is just over 81% of the global population.
Tony Walker 23:20
Many of the countries had repeat surveys, and several countries had more than 100 surveys over that five-year period, and all 84 countries had more than one, and many of them had more than 10 litter audit surveys. So, it's comprehensive. There were 2 million items documented, 1 million items were branded, and approximately 1 million items were unbranded. There was no information at all, which, kind of, is also an important finding, because it's a missing link, and would suggest that there has to be mandatory branding information on packaging to hold producers accountable.
Sylvain Charlebois 24:02
What kind of reaction have you gotten since the release of the study on April 24?
Tony Walker 24:08
Well, it's-, it was massive. We were under embargo for quite some time. And so, you know, you've done this before with many of your studies. So making sure that trusted media have their, you know, their-, their briefing notes and some pre-launch interviews, perhaps, but yeah, as soon as this went live, the timing was also important because it was right in the middle of the intergovernmental negotiating committee meeting, the fourth meeting of the plastics treaty here in Ottawa and so when that aired, and this paper was launched, so it's been less than about a week and a half since this paper was published. It's featured in 125 news articles from 106 different news outlets. I was interviewed today with a reporter from Italy, Al Jazeera. Over the weekend. It's-, it's been published in The Guardian, and also the Washington Post. So, there's staggering interest in this paper.
Michael LeBlanc 25:15
Can we draw a direct line from interest from the media, in this subject to interest in the general population enough to, you know, make whatever changes they need to do or force the producers to make whatever changes they need to do? I mean, it feels like there's a bit of parados law going on here. You take out the top three or four, and you eliminate a fairly high percentage of-, of the issue. Are you satisfied with the progress that we're making towards this or, you know, what are the two or three steps that need to happen to get to this issue?
Tony Walker 25:50
Well, you know, I'm glad you made that point. Because the, the media coverage on this does amplify the findings and I would, even though their study is representing countries of about six and a half billion people on the planet, not many of those will read a science advances paper, however, they will be reading the, you know, the-, they will be impacted, and become knowledgeable and raise awareness through the other media outlets that said, two days before this paper was published, the Federal Minister of Environment Climate Change Canada announced on Earth Day, which was April 22, and also coincided with the first day of the plastics treaty negotiations, a federal mandate for producers to track how much plastics they're producing, and how much they deal with at the end of life. So at all stages of the plastic lifecycle and so that is actually consistent with our recommendations and conclusions in this paper that producers are held accountable and this transparency of how much they produce and how much they genuinely recycle or release into the environment in every single jurisdiction.
Sylvain Charlebois 27:11
What-, now, the study is out, the registry was announced by the Minister, Minister Guilbeault on Earth Day, as you mentioned, what are your expectations from industry in particular and have they reached out to your group about the findings? What are your expectations and what we need to do essentially, to, you know, to deal with this plastic addiction that we all, that we have really?
Tony Walker 27:42
Yeah, yeah, well, you know, surprisingly, both Coca-Cola and PepsiCo, the-, the number one and the number two slot, they, they acknowledge, they recognize the problem and these various initiatives globally, but also here in Canada that they've signed up with, such as the plastic packed, and also Ellen MacArthur Foundation for a circular economy and zero waste. However, they there's been many announcements even since 2018, that they would have 100% recyclable or, you know, reused packaging by 2025. Well, that's just seven months away. So the fact that we're going to, you know, are really realistically going to achieve that and I really like to see-, I'd really like to see that, but a lot needs to happen in just seven short months.
Tony Walker 28:39
However, they did acknowledge there is a problem, and they did acknowledge that they have pilot projects in place to actually make sure they recycle everything they make. Obviously, there's a legacy issue still in the environment that needs to be dealt with. The only pushback we got from one of these top five companies was Altria and there's been a lot of kind of misinformation put out by Altria, for listeners who perhaps don't know, they're not a very commonly known brand it but a big brand nonetheless and they're mostly known for tobacco products and in the past, they've also owned companies that were more familiar with, but that now they're trying to distance themselves from that previous association, but companies and corporations buy each other all the time. So we can't control company ownership of product X, Y or Z. So, this is the data as reported.
Michael LeBlanc 29:39
You know, the language of the circular economy from companies can sometimes be they set ambitions, or they have ambitions which I've always thought, I don't think they have ambitions for profit, they have targets. It always seems to leave a little bit of wiggle room and uncertainty clearly. There are needs you know, we're gonna study it, it's just occurred to us, we're gonna have a pilot program. I mean, these are half measures at best, do you see a path forward where there's enough political consumer pressure to actually get and start making meaningful differences that, you know, combined with the kind of research that you do quantify that have a qualitative impact on the issue?
Tony Walker 30:23
Well, yeah, this is-, this is important and really, the measures that you talk about really are band-aid solutions, at best and in whilst they're-, they're lofty, they're ambitious, they're also voluntary. So until things are regulated, or mandated by government, or hopefully, the international community with a legally binding agreement at national and international levels, I think that's the only time we're really going to see any meaningful progress, because yeah, I mean, when targets are met, it's oh, okay, well, we didn't meet the target, but there's no, there's no penalty, there's no repercussions and as we also pointed out in the study, by making the producers responsible, they'll quickly design a better packaging that can more easily be recycled, and perhaps doesn't include one of 16,000 chemicals, of which a quarter are known to be harmful or toxic. That's another debate another study in and of itself, but what's important, is, is also a limit on how much we produce in the first place because we always have to get to this problem at source, not at the end of life, like downstream measures, we also need to address upstream plastic production and plastic packaging.
Sylvain Charlebois 31:45
My last question before I actually throw it back to Michael to close things off. So, what are the next steps for your group with this study? Now this study is-, is just amazing, have you started to talk about the next study as a group?
Tony Walker 32:03
Wow, that's funny, you should say that the Italian media this afternoon asked the very same thing. So, you know, many of these co-authors, half the co-authors on this list, there's 16, 17 of us, they were all attending the INC meeting. So, I think people are just either arriving home after being away for probably two weeks and nine-, nine days on the ground here in Canada and so what we need to do is, you know, have a debrief of both-, both the media attention on this the international community attention and then-.
Tony Walker 32:41
And by the way, these break through from plastic, the ENGO that I mentioned, they do coordinate these global audit programs and I've been part of them before and here in Canada, and on Sable Island, doing more regional studies as it were, but I think there's more meaningful-, just-, well there's justification now to do this again, and do it because then we can track if Coca-Cola is advocating, and insisting that they're going to recycle every bottle that they make, they're going to recycle, or, you know, have another reuse for it. Well, that's great and the only way you can check that effectiveness or that change in policy, or government policy is to continue to monitor and tweak those changes. So yeah, in short, or in summary, we are definitely going to do this again.
Michael LeBlanc 33:35
Well, you know, it's an impressive accomplishment, and congratulations on getting published and doing the kind of the hard work that it takes to move this, as the government types would say this file forward, as consumers would say, you know, save our lives and save our children's lives. So, listen, Tony, thanks so much for joining us on The Food Professor podcast. It was a real treat to touch bases. Now we'll put a link to the study in the show notes. Is there anywhere else people should go on an ongoing basis to follow the work you're doing?
Tony Walker 34:04
Well, they can follow me on X, formerly Twitter or LinkedIn and yeah, I don't know, but I follow Sylvain and vice versa. So, we'll-, we'll tag each other on various news outlets. Yeah.
Michael LeBlanc 34:21
All right. Well, fantastic.
Sylvain Charlebois 34:22
Thank you so much, Tony, for joining us today.
Tony Walker 34:25
Thank you for the invite. It was a pleasure.
Michael LeBlanc 34:29
So, speaking of plastics, ripped from the headlines, that's twice I've said this in the episode Calgary plastic bylaw is canceled. Clearly, they're not subscribing to Science Magazine. Bylaw as it was written required businesses to charge 15 cents for paper bags $1 for reusable bags, single use utensils, cutlery napkin condiments would only be provided if requested. So, this has all been canceled. You know Alberta is-
Sylvain Charlebois 34:53
Well, you're dealing-, you're dealing with an unpopular City Council. That's one thing that is not coming up in the headlines, but so-, the mayor is looking for some support and it was an unpopular measure in Calgary. So, I think there's a lot of that going on right now. I wouldn't read it into the decision all that much, him at the end of the day, I mean, some of the issues with bags and I mean, the-, the reason why we are talking so much about plastic is that bags and utensils and straws are-, are so visible. It's such a visible problem, like in a spring right now you'll see, you know, bags in trees, and you'll see bags on beaches. I mean, we walk on beaches here in Nova Scotia, we always see plastic stuff and my kids they-, they-, they see the problem so and, and of course, Tony's study points to that problem very much. So, I think it's-, it's-, for Calgary, it's unfinished business, they're gonna have to figure out something at some point, I do see it as a problem. I mean, at some point, people will have to adopt different habits.
Michael LeBlanc 36:03
Let's talk about-, we talked about McDonald's last week on a bit of a miss-, a rare miss. Now Starbucks also just posted a miss, and it was interesting. I was reading Howard Schultz, the founder of Starbucks, he's bounced back, he's left and come back a couple of times as CEO and he weighed in, of course, because he can't help himself.
Sylvain Charlebois 36:23
The ghosts of Christmas past.
Michael LeBlanc 36:26
Well, you know, it was-, it-, what was interesting, and then this mirrors my experience, I mean, he basically made the point that, you know, Starbucks will-, will-, will thrive again, they've got to turn around the China business, which I think is questionable. Whether that can happen or not, Chinese, as you know, the desert like we just talked about, not politics, but even demographics, the demographics are collapsing in China. Now they still have a billion people, but there's some forecasts that have them closer to half a billion by 2080. Like, we can't underestimate that. And of course, that's going to change demand, but you don't my experience is that, you know, they did such a breakthrough idea with this kind of order from your app and pick up a coffee at a table, the problem, it seems is, it's-, they've gotta get back to kind of knowing what the customer wants, because that process has to, I think it's got to be redone, because now you get a line to pick up your coffee you ordered from your app, and the whole thing was initially-
Sylvain Charlebois 37:23
To avoid waiting.
Michael LeBlanc 37:25
And in some cases, and I've been to a couple of wonderful Starbucks stores, but you know, the more things and you would know this well, I wanted your comments on it, the more things you add to the menu, the more complexity, the harder it is for the baristas to make it, the more time it takes and then, you know, you've got you've got kids on these TikTok things look, and I want these 50 Different ingredients, can you make this for me and everybody, you could just see everybody in the whole place, oh, my God, I gotta get to a meeting. What do you-, what do you think of-, I guess, you know, they're also facing increased coffee costs, right, the coffee bean costs are very high. What's your assessment of the Starbucks business in the coffee business in general? Is there room for other competitors? Has Starbucks' big day passed, or they can reclaim again, that innovation and that leadership?
Sylvain Charlebois 38:11
I think so, but I mean, your China point is well taken, I actually agree with you. It's unclear exactly how Starbucks will be held by-, by China, given the macroeconomics that are becoming weaker and weaker by the day, almost. So growth is going to come-, it's going to have to come from elsewhere and my guess is that they may actually want to simplify processes overall, whether it's online using apps, the menu itself, I do think that, you know, Tim Hortons, actually adoption of a pizza, I think is I mean, the whole idea is to excite people with-, give them a reason to excite them again. I think that's where we're at with Starbucks, they need to figure out a way to excite their customer base once more, you know, make i-, give-, remind your customers why you're going to Starbucks in the first place and why Starbucks is a little bit different. I think people are starting to forget about that. The pumpkin spice effect is long gone. Now you're gonna have to figure out something new.
Michael LeBlanc 39:21
Well, it's really, I mean, they're such a behemoth, right, I was just checking; 38,000 locations,
Sylvain Charlebois 39:27
Right. It is the number one chain in the world now.
Michael LeBlanc 39:30
And who is now in charge of innovation at Starbucks. We gotta get her on the show. We've had her on the show before Lyne Castonguay just got that job. She's the global innovation. So, Lyne, I'm going to send this to you and come, come tell us what you're planning for the-
Sylvain Charlebois 39:47
Absolutely.
Michael LeBlanc 39:48
The revitalization of Starbucks. There we go.
Sylvain Charlebois 39:50
It's not really a repeat guest because she has a new job. So, it would be kind of a-, yeah, absolutely and we've had many coffee chains on this show.
Michael LeBlanc 39:58
So there you go. Lynne, come on the show. You sent me a note about-, you wanted to talk about something that just stunned me that there was actually something fraudulent coming out of China. Fraudulent oil. I mean, isn't -
Sylvain Charlebois 40:11
Cooking oil, cooking oil.
Michael LeBlanc 40:12
Cooking oil and olive oil, isn't oil one of the most food fraudulent categories to begin with. So-
Sylvain Charlebois 40:18
I gotta tell you.
Michael LeBlanc 40:19
Why do we even talk about this because I just assume a bunch of stuff is going to-, what's going on that has your mind going?
Sylvain Charlebois 40:24
So, this is-, this is really what's going on. So-, so America, the United States, they do buy a lot of cooking oil from the-, from China and that really upsets farmers, but they were doing some reports, I think Bloomberg reported on fraudulent cooking oil coming from China, like peanut oil that was mixed with canola oil or-, or something else that is cheaper. That's fraud and so they're starting to discover that. So not only that, it shows that China is just looking for ways to cut corners, but I mean, some of these commodities are either coming from Brazil or the United States. So, the United States is basically shipping stuff overseas, and China will process it, will actually label it differently, and ship it back to America.
Sylvain Charlebois 41:14
So of course that upsets farmers, it upsets manufacturers, it upsets consumers as well, but I actually I've always believed that in Canada, we aren't measuring how fraudulent some of our oil actually is, the CFIA comes out, and I will test all of oil, avocado oil, different oils, but they don't do it frequently enough and in light of what has happened with COVID over the last few years and because of what's going on right now with, with things tightening up right now across the supply chain around the world, like food inflation is-, is-, is almost at zero now globally industrialized world. Did you see Germany's food inflation is that .15, a year ago it was almost at 20. So, you can see that really, things are tightening up and when that happens, you have to be more careful. So, the Chinese-, the Chinese announcement by Bloomberg this week is I think is symptomatic of a much greater problem and Canada is exposed to that.
Michael LeBlanc 42:14
All right, well, listen, it's been a great show. Let's-, let's leave it there for now. We've got-, again, looking forward to being together with you and my friend in Quebec at SIAL next week and if anyone wants to go there, reach out to us, DM us and come to the SIAL show and it's a wonderful show. We're looking forward to it every year. It's gonna be busy. All right.
Sylvain Charlebois 42:37
This first year we're both presenting, I think, at SIAL.
Michael LeBlanc 42:41
I think that's true. So, you know, it's a banner year.
Sylvain Charlebois 42:45
We're both gonna be extremely busy.
Michael LeBlanc 42:46
We're both going to be busy. Fun busy, though. It's gonna be fun busy and-
Sylvain Charlebois 42:50
That's right. So just so you know, for people listening, we are celebrating on May 15th at four o'clock at SIAL poutines 60th anniversary because it's SIAL's 60th.
Michael LeBlanc 43:04
Yeah.
Sylvain Charlebois 43:04
And so, we're also celebrating poutines 60th and I wrote-, I wrote the book on poutine. So, I was actually invited as a guest of honor, which is great.
Michael LeBlanc 43:13
Fantastic and by the way, one of your books just made it into a final for a Book of the Year Award. Talk about that for a couple seconds.
Sylvain Charlebois 43:18
Nominated for a Taste Canada award. Yeah, my second nomination, I'm not going to win. I'm just-, I'm just pleased to be nominated.
Michael LeBlanc 43:26
It's good to be nominated, right? It's good to be nominated. Let's add some applause for that. There we go.
Sylvain Charlebois 43:31
Thank you. Thank you very much.
Michael LeBlanc 43:33
Let's go. I've never been nominated for a book prize. So, I would wager most of the people listening haven't either, so congratulations, big accomplishment.
Sylvain Charlebois 43:40
Thank you.
Michael LeBlanc 43:41
All right, well, let's leave it there. Like I said, I'm Michael LeBlanc, media entrepreneur, podcaster keynote speaker, consultant, and you are?
Sylvain Charlebois 43:48
And I'm The Food Professor, Sylvain Charlebois.
Michael LeBlanc 43:52
Next episode will be live-, recorded live in Montreal. Until then everybody safe travels and talk to you next week.
Sylvain Charlebois 43:59
Take care.
SUMMARY KEYWORDS
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