On this episode, Sylvain and I sit down again with one of our favourite repeat guests—a food industry professional who has forgotten more than we'll ever know about the fascinating and complex world of cheese—Gurth M. Pretty. We talk about the innovations happening in the world of cheese and the challenges facing Canadian retailers of bringing that innovation to market across the nation.
On this episode, Sylvain and I sit down again with one of our favourite repeat guests—a food industry professional who has forgotten more than we'll ever know about the fascinating and complex world of cheese—Gurth M. Pretty. We talk about the innovations happening in the world of cheese and the challenges facing Canadian retailers of bringing that innovation to market across the nation.
Visit Gurth at his fantastic bespoke cheese store in Mississauga, Lakeview Cheese Galore.
The Food Professor #podcast is presented by Caddle.
Michael LeBlanc 00:04
Welcome to our summer SIAL special bonus episodes of the Food Professor podcast, presented by Caddle.
Michael LeBlanc 00:13
As the official podcast for the SIAL Food Innovation show this year in Montreal, Sylvain and I had the opportunity to interview the leading thought leaders, brands and makers in the food industry, as the saying goes, these are their stories.
Michael LeBlanc 00:26
On this episode, Sylvain and I sit down with one of our favorite repeat guests, a food industry professional who has forgotten more than we'll ever know about the fascinating and complex world of cheese - Gurth Pretty. We talk about the innovations happening in the world of cheese and the challenges facing Canadian retailers of bringing that innovation to market across the nation.
Michael LeBlanc 00:48
Gurth, welcome to the food Professor podcast. It, for me, is not SIAL until you're on the mic in front of us, because you know our relationship together, the three of us goes back to the first SIAL, here in Montreal and now you're wonderful,
Gurth Pretty 01:04
It's a lot more space. It's a lot. It was compared to last the first one, it was like a little
Sylvain Charlebois 01:10
You should have brought all your cheese with you, so we can taste.
Gurth Pretty 01:13
Okay, but from that perspective, things have changed a little bit here for SIAL. So-
Michael LeBlanc 01:19
Talk about it.
Gurth Pretty 01:20
Basically, in the past, it was all about SIAL cheese, but we decided to expand it to being SIAL dairy, so talking about, also, the other dairy products. So today we had a wonderful presentation that I coordinated regarding ethnic dairy products, because, you know-
Sylvain Charlebois 01:42
I must say, I mean, I, as you're talking, I just realized that your branding changed, it never-, it never occurred to me until you just said it, of course, yes, dairy, your focus is dairy and not just cheese.
Gurth Pretty 01:56
So just we had-, we had crema, we had tzatziki, we had halloumi. We had I'll say, middle eastern style cheese created for the Middle Eastern communities here, originally in Quebec and then we had Latin American dairy products made again by a family who emigrated from Colombia to Quebec and said, well, we can't find our cheese. Well, why don't we start making it and there we go and then we had a wonderful presentation later this afternoon on innovative dairy marketing and products. Have you ever heard of the dairy distillery?
Michael LeBlanc 02:38
No.
Sylvain Charlebois 02:40
Yes, yes, I have.
Gurth Pretty 02:41
Omid McDonald from Almonte, Ontario, makes vodka.
Michael LeBlanc 02:46
Near Ottawa.
Gurth Pretty 02:47
Near Ottawa, makes a vodka from lactose.
Michael LeBlanc 02:51
What kind of alchemy is that? How does that happen?
Gurth Pretty 02:53
Well, he's an entrepreneur, a little bit of a crazy guy, and decided, hey, I want to start up a distillery and yeah.
Sylvain Charlebois 03:00
Actually, and some of his posts are pretty darn funny, actually.
Gurth Pretty 03:04
To the point where he now makes flavored cream vodka.
Michael LeBlanc 03:10
That'd be great. I mean, let me-, let me see this. Okay, so let me describe this.
Gurth Pretty 03:14
I just-, I just brought out a sample bottle. That's which-, which one's that?
Michael LeBlanc 03:19
Key lime cream liqueur, vod-, Vodkow.
Gurth Pretty 03:26
And the bottle looks like an old milk bottle.
Sylvain Charlebois 03:28
Almonte, Ontario,
Michael LeBlanc 03:30
So, and it's lactose free and I was thinking-
Gurth Pretty 03:34
And it's made out of lactose.
Michael LeBlanc 03:37
Like, it's like straw to gold. This thing,
Gurth Pretty 03:39
I don't know if you have some little cups, we could sample it around and talk about but again, it's all about innovation on how the other dairy products, like, there's the Ener-cheese, which is a wonderful cheese snack. It's a dried cheese and made in Nelson, British Columbia, and he says he goes through 20,000 kilos of curds, cheddar curds, a month, and dries it. Great product, shelf stable and as it's cheese, it's considered a food. It's not taxed because it's not a snack.
Michael LeBlanc 04:18
Now let me ask you this. You're a retailer, in addition to being somebody who's forgotten more about cheese than I'll ever know, you are a retailer. I love your store.
Gurth Pretty 04:28
Lakeview Cheese Galore. South End, Mississauga on Lakeshore Rd.
Michael LeBlanc 04:32
I'm a frequent patron now.
Gurth Pretty 04:34
Yeah, you make me hungry every time you come in. I need some cheese to cook on this beautiful piece of meat like.
Michael LeBlanc 04:40
I just got some-
Gurth Pretty 04:41
Come show me the videos, food porn.
Michael LeBlanc 04:43
I have to show you the video I did with the blue cheese you gave me on this giant tomahawk cowboy steak, it turned out wonderful. Anyway, my point there is, I want to talk about innovation because as-, as I've said a couple of times, like last year's winner of the overall SIAL innovation show was out of business since 6 months. So, I see very innovative product, and in some ways, it goes small and niche. Sometimes that's called ethnic. Sometimes it works in ethnic markets. As you as a retailer like you've got to figure out, you don't have endless aisles in your store. You've got to make some decisions about what you're going to carry and what you're not going to carry and some of that is what your customers are asking for, and some of it is what you think they would love, but when you see an innovative product like this, you know, what's your lens? How do you-, how do you perceive it and do you see the opportunity?
Gurth Pretty 05:30
So, this is myself, first talking as a former chef.
Michael LeBlanc 05:33
Okay.
Gurth Pretty 05:34
It's always about the taste. I always want to taste the product and hear the story behind it, because you as a consumer, you're not going to remember, well, it's made this way and that way and that way, you're going to remember the name Vodkow and secondly, that, you know, it's a unique product made out of, well, it's an environmentally friendly dairy product because they're using lactose, which is a byproduct of making cheese. Like you can only eat so much ricotta. So what else, which is made from the whey, what are you gonna use that lactose to make into this man decided, okay, I'm gonna do that. So I decided, okay, I like the story. Show me the price, if I think it's reasonable, and also the transportation costs, then it's okay. I'll bring in a case or two, and then start really doing the promotion, to talk about it, to do it, take photographs, post it on the internet. You know, social media, exactly.
Michael LeBlanc 06:40
Do you ever call up your-, your clients and you've got a great email just say, hey, I got a new product. Stop in and give it a try. And is that-
Gurth Pretty 06:48
And then also, the other thing when I'm dealing with a new supplier is, I always ask him, are you willing and ready to do demos, tastings, my match at my stores, tasting is believing, how else are you going to-
Sylvain Charlebois 07:00
To support the market.
Gurth Pretty 07:01
Exactly, because if it's a brand-new product, brand new product that you don't know, are you just going to buy it? Ooh, it's vodka. Vodka, you know, liquor. but if you sample it, and also that the manufacturer gives you ideas on how to use it or cook with it.
Michael LeBlanc 07:17
Am I crazy to think that this is a perfect solution for making vodka cream pasta.
Gurth Pretty 07:24
I'd be willing to-, yeah, but it's key lime. Okay, not the key lime, the key lime, but they do have, I guess he does have a coffee flavored and I'm trying to remember what the other flavor, oh, an eggnog and the eggnog was really good.
Michael LeBlanc 07:38
All right. All right. All right. Giving me ideas. So, so basically, you know, you want to work with people who basically want to work with you, didn't, don't get ahead of their skis too much in innovation. I mean, there's some stuff that's so innovative, the market is so small, you're trying to find that-, that sweet spot, right, let's-, and before I throw it back to Savannah, let me ask you about-, let's get back to SIAL for a second. So, in prior years, there's been a competition for cheese.
Gurth Pretty 08:03
Which we're going to be doing that next year in Toronto.
Michael LeBlanc 08:06
This year and I met the wonderful woman yesterday. I met her yesterday. Didn't work out that we'd get her on the mic this time, but she is the winner of the cheese
Gurth Pretty 08:16
Monger, Inaugural Cheese monger competition. So, this was established by my good colleague, Yannick Akin from Fromagerie Yannick here in the Montreal region. It was a competition to choose the Canadian candidate to participate at the French cheese monger competition at Le Monde de Fromage in Toules, and there's four-
Sylvain Charlebois 08:43
And when is that?
Gurth Pretty 08:44
That'll be in 2025, so Emily has a year to prepare for herself, because there's nine different challenges that she has to complete in one day. Here at SIAL.
Sylvain Charlebois 08:58
It's like the Olympics of cheese.
Gurth Pretty 09:00
The Olympics of being a cheese monger.
Michael LeBlanc 09:02
It's a decathlon.
Gurth Pretty 09:03
Exactly, and-, or the pentathlon, or whichever has got the most amount of competitions.
Sylvain Charlebois 09:08
Could you give us a couple of events that she would have to.
Gurth Pretty 09:11
Well, so the ones that she had to do here, she had to create a cheese platter according to a theme, which was the cities of the world. So, she had to somehow incorporate that.
Gurth Pretty 09:24
Oh, she knew ahead of time, she had to have 20 different cheese on her platter, of which a certain amount were cow, goat, sheep and water buffalo milk, and also cheese that were European based AOP or DOP cheese, which is all about the certification system regarding traditional European food products, she had to be able to-, she had to have the cheese identified with a little name tag so people knew what cheese they were. We as members of the jury, as jury members were also judging her on how clean her workstation was, how well she was using her tools, her equipment, how well she was cutting like she had created as part of her presentation, she created an inukshuk as part of her-, so the traditional Inuit standing man.
Michael LeBlanc 10:19
Showing people the way, showing people the way.
Gurth Pretty 10:21
Made out of goat cheese, but she had a challenge, though, as it was warm here, the goat cheese started to soften, so she had to keep moving it back into place, kind of thing. So that was challenge number one. Challenge number two was to show her knowledge and skill, her vocabulary of describing the cheese to consumers, to making them want to buy it,
Sylvain Charlebois 10:46
Not to experts.
Gurth Pretty 10:47
Not to experts, yeah, to consumers. Challenge number three is they had to do a blind taste test of five different AOP cheese and identify them by name, by type of milk, by country or region.
Michael LeBlanc 11:04
Like scotch tasting scotch, nosing even, right?
Michael LeBlanc 11:07
But they're all in the line of these interesting challenges. It's a wonderful-, it's a wonderful concept. You know, when I first heard it, I didn't-, I didn't connect it, and then I started thinking about and I chatted with her, and your articulation is so-, it's so awful. It's like, I'm going to present cheese in a certain way, here, you've got your choice, but I guess you've got to make it.
Gurth Pretty 11:07
And-, trying to remember what the fourth one was.
Gurth Pretty 11:30
Yeah, she has-, they had, each of the five candidates, contestants had their own choice of cheese, but a certain amount had to be specifically of European denomination. So, you know, we saw some wonderful Parmigiano Reggiano. That's a DOP cheese. We had sent Tête de Moine coming from Switzerland, some, gruyere, you know, but then you suddenly saw, oh, I recognize that cheese. There's-, there's that Ontario goat cheese with ash in it, you know, some other people may not recognize that cheese or, you know, it was fascinating seeing what they created. One of the contestants created a version of the CN tower out of cheese and the thing too is that the platter, the platter had, could only be 60 centimeters by 60 centimeters by 60 centimeters and we actually measured to make sure it didn't go too tall, or they might have lost points.
Sylvain Charlebois 12:22
That's funny. I guess sticking to the SIAL theme here. So, you've been here a couple of days. You've been at SIAL many years-, for many years. Any-, any things that-, that really stuck out at you for SIAL 2024 in Montreal, things that are new that surprised you?
Gurth Pretty 12:42
I'll say this, it's big. It's now on two floors and I said, ‘Oh my gosh, I got to go up to the fifth floor to see everyone up there too’. So that, and-
Sylvain Charlebois 12:53
By the way upstairs, it smells really good. Lots of cooking going on, and a singing chef. Did you hear that?
Gurth Pretty 12:59
No, I didn't.
Sylvain Charlebois 13:00
Italian. Yeah, there's an Italian booth and his voice resonates everywhere, it's so beautiful. I mean, the second floor is the party, yeah.
Gurth Pretty 13:09
Yeah, so, so, yeah, definitely, there's a lot more booths. There's all the different experts. There's definitely, well, one thing that I'm really happy to discover more about is the country of honor this year, is Morocco, yeah, because, you know, yeah, they're right beside us. I've always been curious; I've been wanting to go to Morocco and experience more of their food.
Michael LeBlanc 13:32
We interviewed the-, I interviewed the ambassador and I was, I was saying, Tell me about your country, you know, she was just talking about how it's, this, this amalgamation of everything from, you know, it's a little bit African, it's Mediterranean, it's Arabic, it's all these kind of cultures put together and, of course, cultures represent themselves in-, in food. It sounds like you're-, would you come out of here-, walking out of here, as you drive back to-
Gurth Pretty 13:58
Back to Toronto.
Michael LeBlanc 14:01
Are you opt-, are you more optimistic than when you came, are you more excited about the industry before you got here? I'm trying to take your temperature.
Gurth Pretty 14:10
Well, I am excited because I discovered some amazing food companies that I'm very interested in the possibility of carrying their products at my store.
Sylvain Charlebois 14:21
Oh, okay, how many products do you carry at your store right now?
Gurth Pretty 14:25
I don't know, quite a bit.
Michael LeBlanc 14:26
Yeah, quite a bit for a small store-
Gurth Pretty 14:28
And it specializes mostly in Canadian food products. So unfortunately, I won't have the Vodkow because I don't have my liquor license, but you know, there's some wonderful ginger beers, I tasted some wonderful chocolates, some spice mixtures, some hot sauces. I was hoping to try and find maybe some good charcuterie, some good, dried sausage.
Sylvain Charlebois 14:50
Actually Sawbridge.
Gurth Pretty 14:52
But the challenge, though, is-, and I Sawbridge, I didn't have a chance to go see them. Are they federally licensed and I know we've talked about this in the past, like, that's our greatest challenge in our beautiful country.
Michael LeBlanc 15:04
He was talking about expanding out of Quebec.
Sylvain Charlebois 15:06
Yeah, they were.
Gurth Pretty 15:08
Are they federally certified, licensed, so that they can sell outside of their home province, because I want to bring in some products from Quebec. Called out the company that we'd love to sell it to, but we're not allowed to because we're only provincial, like, oh, same thing for cheese that's a whole other conversation.
Sylvain Charlebois 15:25
Just go there, beg for a couple and bring it home.
Gurth Pretty 15:27
Okay, yeah, bring us-, bring it back so we can all enjoy it right here.
Sylvain Charlebois 15:32
Yeah, exactly.
Michael LeBlanc 15:33
Last question for me. Then pass the mic back to Sylvain to bring us home. Looking-, what are you most excited about, the most Innovative product. You-, you've been-, your-, you've been-, you wrote the book literally on cheese, so what should our listeners be looking for, and what are the trends?
Gurth Pretty 15:49
Oh, boy, regarding cheese?
Michael LeBlanc 15:52
Yep.
Gurth Pretty 15:52
Okay, trends that are coming up.
Michael LeBlanc 15:57
You're still not a fan. I'm assuming of-
Gurth Pretty 15:59
Don't go there. Okay, don't go there. You remember from last year, no, don't go there.
Michael LeBlanc 16:04
All right.
Gurth Pretty 16:05
It's not cheese.
Michael LeBlanc 16:06
All right.
Gurth Pretty 16:07
I believe there's a place.
Michael LeBlanc 16:09
What about Remilk cheese, not plant based. Remilk.
Gurth Pretty 16:12
What's Remilk cheese?
Michael LeBlanc 16:13
We had a guest on our show, lab grown, lab grown, but it's registered.
Sylvain Charlebois 16:17
It just got approved by Health Canada.
Michael LeBlanc 16:20
He's had the cream cheese. You've had the cream cheese, right?
Gurth Pretty 16:24
Okay,
Michael LeBlanc 16:24
It's not plant based.
Gurth Pretty 16:25
No, but it's lab based.
Michael LeBlanc 16:27
Lab based, but scalable, and it's-
Sylvain Charlebois 16:29
They recreate the same cells, the same-
Michael LeBlanc 16:32
It's so much dairy they have to put dairy on the packaging because it's an allergen.
Gurth Pretty 16:37
So I'd be curious to taste and find out, yeah, because I've known about, you know, Remeat, you know, lab grown meat, so-, but I did not know about milk.
Michael LeBlanc 16:49
You must have missed that episode, because I know you usually listen to all our episodes.
Gurth Pretty 16:52
I know other trends, you know, are coming up. I think, like I was recently in Wisconsin, judging cheese there, you know, some unique flavorings added to cheese. I was talking to one cheese maker, said it'd be great if you could maybe rub or soak a cheese, in maybe-, in Thai, not Thai, in Chai. I think that'd be quite interesting. I met one company that has, it's a Spice Company, and why not do more unique, regional, flavored cheese. So, I think, you know, the trend is more regional, more unique create-, creations. Like, there's a company here that makes a lobster oil have that on cheese, rub that on-
Michael LeBlanc 17:34
I remember them from last year, and they actually got a couple of listings. I saw them at Longos, a very unique like, it's a very in your face, unique product.
Gurth Pretty 17:42
And that's why it's great just walking the show and just being open minded and discovering and having fun.
Sylvain Charlebois 17:47
Listen, always a pleasure to have you on our podcast.
Gurth Pretty 17:51
Always happy to be here.
Sylvain Charlebois 17:52
It makes us want to buy more cheese. The world is a better place with cheese.
Gurth Pretty 17:56
Makes us smile.
Sylvain Charlebois 17:57
Absolutely so thank you so much for joining us again this year.
Gurth Pretty 18:01
My pleasure, gentlemen. Cheers.
Sylvain Charlebois 18:04
Thanks for tuning into our summer SIAL bonus interview series, Michael and I will be back live on the microphone together in late August. I'm the Food Professor, Sylvain Charlebois.
Michael LeBlanc 18:18
And I'm Michael LeBlanc, media entrepreneur, consumer growth, a consultant and keynote Speaker. Safe travels everyone. See you back in August.
SUMMARY KEYWORDS
cheese, product, lactose, dairy products, dairy, food, wonderful, Montreal, created, vodka, Quebec, Sylvain, challenge, year, innovation, taste, goat cheese, competition, retailer, Ontario