Bon Cop, Bad Cop28, Inside Canada's Food Price Report '24, guest Alex Green, Chief Experience Officer, Longo's

The Food Professor

Our special guest on this episode is Alex Green, Chief Experience and Marketing Officer, Longo's, recorded live in person at the Coffee Association of Canada's conference in Toronto. Alex shares the rich history of Longo's brand and the customer-focused strategies they embrace to win in a hyper-competitive Southern Ontario grocery market.

In the news, get ready for an exclusive behind-the-scenes look at Canada's just-released Food Price Report 2024, the foremost report on the future of food pricing in Canada. We also talk about the good and bad news coming out of COP28, Empire/Sobey's CEO Michael Medline's testimony in Ottawa and what that may or may not have accomplished, changes to Kraft's Mac & Cheese, for good or ill, Cheerios packaging fiasco, and the exorcism of ghost kitchens.

Click here for Canada's Food Price Report 2024

About Alex

I believe in remarkable people and their ideas and I’m on a mission to unleash this potential to allow individuals, teams, and organizations to thrive in an ever-changing world.
As a seasoned executive, I am at my best when leading teams and brands through transformative change that’s grounded in insight. I unlock new value through aligning company, product, service and brand design which is magnified with powerful, fully integrated go-to-market strategies and backed by empowered and motivated teams. I have particularly deep expertise as a Brand and Marketing leader that embraces the exponential value of different versus the incremental value of better. In addition to traditional and digital performance marketing skillsets, I am well-grounded in data & analytics, loyalty program design & CRM, as well as digital product, UX and e-commerce management. These strategic capabilities are paired with a strong optimism bias, resilient mindset and change management and executive coaching certifications. All in support of getting the right ideas to market to navigate disruptive environments and deliver business results.
At Longo’s, I am loving being at the forefront of a full retail transformation that touches all aspects of our Guest and Team Member experience. It’s strategic yet hands-on with a highly entrepreneurial team in a fast-paced and rapidly changing industry. We are testing, learning and improving every day.
In support of great ideas everywhere, I recently established RMRKBL, a free presentation training field guide and toolkit designed to help people better express their ideas, so they can get on with changing the world. You can check it out at rmrkbl.ca.

About Us
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.

About Michael

Michael is the Founder & President of M.E. LeBlanc & Company Inc. and a Senior Advisor to Retail Council of Canada and the Bank of Canada as part of his advisory and consulting practice. He brings 25+ years of brand/retail/marketing & eCommerce leadership experience with Levi's, Black & Decker, Hudson's Bay, Today's Shopping Choice and Pandora Jewellery.

Michael has been on the front lines of retail industry change for his entire career. He has delivered keynotes, hosted fire-side discussions with C-level executives and participated worldwide in thought leadership panels. ReThink Retail has added Michael to their prestigious Top Global Retail Influencers list for 2023 for the third year in a row.

Michael is also the president of Maven Media, producing a network of leading trade podcasts, including Remarkable Retail , with best-selling author Steve Dennis, now ranked one of the top retail podcasts in the world.

Based in San Francisco, Global eCommerce Leaders podcast explores global cross-border issues and opportunities for eCommerce brands and retailers.

Last but not least, Michael is the producer and host of the "Last Request Barbeque" channel on YouTube, where he cooks meals to die for - and collaborates with top brands as a food and product influencer across North America

The Food Professor #podcast is presented by Caddle.

About Us

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.

About Michael

Michael is the president and founder of M.E. LeBlanc & Company Inc, a senior retail advisor, keynote speaker and media entrepreneur. He has been on the front lines of retail industry change for his entire career. He has delivered keynotes, hosted fire-side discussions and participated worldwide in thought leadership panels, most recently on the main stage in Toronto at Retail Council of Canada’s Retail Secure conference with leaders from The Gap and Kroger talking about violence in retail stores, keynotes on the state & future of retail in Orlando and Halifax, and at the 2023 Canadian GroceryConnex conference, hosting the CEOs of Walmart Canada, Longo's and Save-On-Foods Canada. Michael brings 25+ years of brand/retail/marketing & eCommerce leadership experience with Levi's, Black & Decker, Hudson's Bay, Pandora Jewellery, The Shopping Channel and Retail Council of Canada to his advisory, speaking and media practice.
Michael also produces and hosts a network of leading retail trade podcasts, including the award-winning No.1 independent retail industry podcast in North America, Remarkable Retail,
Canada's top retail industry podcast; the Voice of Retail; Canada's top food industry and the top Canadian-produced management independent podcasts in the country, The Food Professor, with Dr. Sylvain Charlebois.
Rethink Retail has recognized Michael as one of the top global retail influencers for the fourth year in a row, Coresight Research has named Michael a Retail AI Influencer, and you can tune into Michael’s cooking show, Last Request BBQ, on YouTube, Instagram, X and yes, TikTok.
Available for keynote presentations helping retailers, brands and retail industry insiders explaining the current state of the retail industry in Canada and the U.S., and the future of retail.