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Mark Wickson

May 17, 20203 min read

Perspective on Symbiosis and its Relation to Ethics in Food Choices

I thought I might take some time away from COVID-related stories to write about a term that gets thrown around a little in the vegetarian...

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A Look at the Impact of COVID19 on Grocery Shopping in Canada

Mike von Massow

May 11, 20203 min read

A Look at the Impact of COVID19 on Grocery Shopping in Canada

Statistics Canada released an interesting report today on recent grocery store sales in Canada. I thought I would provide a perspective...

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An Integrated Beef Market Offers Protection from Plant Closures

Mike von Massow

May 11, 20204 min read

An Integrated Beef Market Offers Protection from Plant Closures

Post by Brendan McDougall As scary as COVID-19 is, the potential for secondary consequences such as wide-scale food shortages are equally...

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Is the Federal Student Support Killing Ag Labour?

Mike von Massow

Apr 29, 20203 min read

Is the Federal Student Support Killing Ag Labour?

I have seen several commentators in the past few days criticize the federal program offering support for students and new graduates...

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Mike von Massow

Apr 15, 20203 min read

In a COVID-19 World, is Local Better?

Our food system has weathered an unprecedented demand shift and shock over the past month. Overall, we have come out of it reasonably...

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Mike von Massow

Apr 6, 20205 min read

Farming in the Era of COVID-19

We are experiencing unprecedented disruption to normal life and commerce in order to flatten the pandemic curve due to COVID-19. Physical...

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Andrew Baynham

Mar 30, 20203 min read

The Problems with Scale

Listening to the recent Freakonomics podcast “Policy-Making is not a Science (Yet)” encouraged me to stop and think more carefully about...

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An Exploration of Cultural Intangible Heritage

Molly Gallant

Feb 5, 20205 min read

An Exploration of Cultural Intangible Heritage

Many of us have heard of, perhaps even visited ourselves, a UNESCO heritage site. From the Great Wall of China to the Canadian Rocky...

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Mike von Massow

Dec 31, 20193 min read

Reflecting on Past Trends Reports

The Food Focus team generates an annual Food Trends Report to highlight key factors that will be front and center in the food discourse...

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Trash Talk: Post 1 - Understanding household food waste

Molly Gallant

Jul 16, 20195 min read

Trash Talk: Post 1 - Understanding household food waste

Trash Talk: A Mini Series on Household Food Waste Overview Food waste is now recognized around the world as a pressing environmental,...

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Is Canada’s food policy biting off more than it can chew?

Mike von Massow

Jun 24, 20192 min read

Is Canada’s food policy biting off more than it can chew?

Last week, the Government of Canada released “Everyone at the Table”; a food policy for Canada. It has an ambitious agenda covering a...

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Take care in interpreting food price news

Mike von Massow

Jun 20, 20192 min read

Take care in interpreting food price news

The recent release of the May consumer price numbers for food generated considerable news. Year over year, the price of food has gone up...

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Mike von Massow

May 30, 20193 min read

The challenge of choice in food retail

Grocery stores are relatively low margin businesses. They key to profitability is to increase the size of the customer’s basket - how...

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Mark Wickson

May 27, 20195 min read

Meal Kits with Mark, Part 3

As discussed in my last blog post, meal kits will always have issues with variety. They need to be familiar enough that most people are...

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The psychology of dynamic pricing in restaurants

Mike von Massow

May 24, 20193 min read

The psychology of dynamic pricing in restaurants

Dynamic pricing is well established in some industries. Changes in airline prices for a specific date change over time. There was once...

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Mike von Massow

May 1, 20193 min read

Celery as a superfood?

I regularly get media calls asking for perspective on price changes for food products. In the past few days, I have been inundated with...

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Mike von Massow

Apr 29, 20193 min read

Ghosts of retail flyers past

I was recently given a framed copy of a Loblaws flyer from July 1938. The flyer provides some insight into how things have changed in...

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Let’s not rush to judgement on Maple Leaf

Mike von Massow

Apr 22, 20193 min read

Let’s not rush to judgement on Maple Leaf

Maple Leaf recently announced the construction of a manufacturing facility in Indiana for their Lightlife plant-based protein products...

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Andrew Baynham

Apr 15, 20194 min read

Why do we shop the way we do?

I find myself to be an atypical grocery shopper. I usually visit the grocery store at least 2-3 times a week as it is on my way home from...

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My Vegan Mistake – misunderstanding a label

Mike von Massow

Apr 4, 20193 min read

My Vegan Mistake – misunderstanding a label

We recently wrote an article titled “Meat Demand is changing but its not because of the vegans.”. Our primary point was that there are...

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RELATED PROJECTS

Considering the complexity of food, it is no surprise that conversations about it can be broad and diverse. In order to better understand how people think about food, Mike is involved in several projects. Learn more about each project below.

UNIVERSITY OF GUELPH SUSTAINABLE RESTAURANT PROJECT

Our team is a group of students, faculty and community partners that are committed to working towards a more sustainable future for the restaurant industry. Every year we hold a forum, bringing prominent speakers to the University of Guelph to discuss issues in the Canadian Restaurant Industry.

Learn More

foodFOCUS

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BLOG

Keep up with the conversation here.

RELATED PROJECTS

Considering the complexity of food, it is no surprise that conversations about it can be broad and diverse. In order to better understand how people think about food, Mike is involved in several projects. Learn more about each project below.

UNIVERSITY OF GUELPH SUSTAINABLE RESTAURANT PROJECT