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I received a sad text from a friend of mine who is a dairy farmer. They are being asked to dump milk as the processors to whom it is assigned cannot use it right now. This is difficult to understand in a time where we are seeing empty grocery stores shelves. Supply chains are complex systems. Many supply chains are built for efficiency and stability and when there is a significant shock to the system, it takes some time to adjust. That is exactly what is happening here. While

The Food Focus team generates an annual Food Trends Report to highlight key factors that will be front and center in the food discourse in the coming years. As I reflect on the past two (and the development of the next one – albeit later than ideal) I realize that we’ve been quite effective in highlighting issues that are important in food. Given it is the end of the year, I thought I would pat the Food Focus team on the back and highlight some of the key successes. I am clea

A recent report predicts that the North American beef and dairy cattle industry will be significantly disrupted by the development of cellular meat products. It states that the industry will be half its size and virtually bankrupt by 2030. Those are bold predictions. We rarely look back to see if predictions come true and my expectation is that to a significant degree, they are taking this provocative stance to push the discussion of the future of meat to the fore. It’s worth

There has been considerable discussion about the compensation package for dairy producers recently announced by the Liberal government. It is worth noting that compensation was originally promised by Stephen Harper’s Conservative government when the original agreement with Europe was signed. There have been two subsequent trade deals which incrementally ceded a share of the Canadian dairy market to other countries. I am not going to get into a discussion on the merits of supp

A piece that my colleagues Alfons Weersink, Aaron De Laporte, Liam Kelly and I published on the Conversation on February 12th, 2019. Food continues to find its way into the consciousness of Canadians. It’s in our news feed, on our television screens and, more and more, part of our day-to-day conversations. The challenge is to separate the fact from the fiction, the ephemeral from the soon-to-be everyday. The University of Guelph’s newest Food Focus Trends Report highlights si

This was also published on the conversation.com on September 3rd, 2018. Negotiations for a revised North American Free Trade Agreement have been ongoing for more than a year, but now it’s crunch time — especially for Canada. What happens in the coming days will determine if NAFTA survives as a three-country trade pact or whether Canada will be left on the sidelines. Since U.S. President Donald Trump announced the United States had a deal with Mexico that could replace NAFTA,