Breakthrough Milk Dumping Study, India Trade Trouble, and our guest Zeeshan Fazal, EDC

The Food Professor

In the latest episode of The Food Professor Podcast, presented by Caddle, we welcome a special guest, Zeeshan Fazal, Regional Director and Agrifood expert from Export Development Canada (EDC). Recorded live at the SIAL food innovation show in Montreal, Zeeshan explains how EDC supports Canadian companies in expanding their reach beyond borders, including into the United States, by providing financial tools, trade expertise, and valuable market connections.

Michael, joining from Chicago, shares his experiences in the Windy City's vibrant food scene, recounting a visit to El Che restaurant and commenting on Chicago's competitive food service industry. He also reminds listeners about the upcoming Coffee Association of Canada conference on November 14th in Markham, where tickets quickly sell out.

The episode focuses on critical industry topics, including the staggering waste in Canada's dairy sector, with over 6 billion litres of milk dumped since 2012, as highlighted in a recent ScienceDirect study. The hosts also touch on Canada-India trade relations' complexities and challenges. The launch of Maple Leaf's new pork division, Canada Packers, is also discussed, followed by commentary on the latest Consumer Price Index (CPI) data, which signals growing concerns about the competitiveness of Canada's agrifood sector.

https://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S0921800924003100?dgcid=coauthor

https://coffeeassoc.com/annual-conference/

About Zeeshan

Zeeshan Fazal is a Regional Manager at EDC, responsible for a team of Relationship Managers supporting Canadian companies to penetrate, grow and succeed internationally. He is also responsible to strategically increase EDC's support to Québec companies in Agriculture and Agrifood sectors.

Mr. Fazal has significant experience in assisting Manufacturing, Technology and Innovation companies to go, grow and succeed internationally. Prior to his appointment to the Business Development team, Mr. Fazal held various underwriting positions for Accounts Receivable Insurance, Bank Guarantees and Loan Guarantees. He was also a Lean Sustainability Advisor where he collaborated closely with internal stakeholders to help lead projects, improve operational efficiencies and client communication processes.

514-876-7115

[e-mail]

edc.ca

Outside of EDC, Mr. Fazal was a lecturer at McGill University where he taught International Finance, Corporate Finance and Financial Statement Analysis. Most recently, he also taught a course on Business Valuation at the Smith School of Business at Queens University. Furthermore, he taught CITP professional designation courses on Global Value Chain and International Trade Finance.

About EDC

Export Development Canada is Canada's export credit agency. We are dedicated to helping Canadian companies, of all sizes, go, grow and succeed beyond our borders. As international risk experts, we provide them with knowledge, financing, insurance and connections. We also provide financial solutions to global companies to facilitate and grow purchases from Canadian companies. We take on risk, so they can take on the world. Learn more at www.edc.ca.

Mr. Fazal holds a Master of Business Administration from the Smith School of Management (Queens University), a bachelor's degree in Finance, Accounting and Biology from McGill University. He is also a Certified International Trade Professional (CITP | FIBP).

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.

Michael LeBlanc is the president and founder of M.E. LeBlanc & Company Inc, a senior retail advisor, keynote speaker and now, media entrepreneur. He has been on the front lines of retail industry change for his entire career.

Michael 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 Marketing conference with leaders from Walmart & Google. He brings 25+ years of brand/retail/marketing & eCommerce leadership experience with Levi's, Black & Decker, Hudson's Bay, CanWest Media, Pandora Jewellery, The Shopping Channel and Retail Council of Canada to his advisory, speaking and media practice.

Michael produces and hosts a network of leading retail trade podcasts, including the award-winning No.1 independent retail industry podcast in America, Remarkable Retail with his partner, Dallas-based best-selling author Steve Dennis; Canada's top retail industry podcast The Voice of Retail and Canada's top food industry and one of the top Canadian-produced management independent podcasts in the country, The Food Professor with Dr. Sylvain Charlebois from Dalhousie University in Halifax.

Rethink Retail has recognized Michael as one of the top global retail experts for the fourth year in a row, Thinkers 360 has named him on of the Top 50 global thought leaders in retail, RTIH has named him a top 100 global though leader in retail technology and Coresight Research has named Michael a Retail AI Influencer. If you are a BBQ fan, you can tune into Michael’s cooking show, Last Request BBQ, on YouTube, Instagram, X and yes, TikTok.

Michael is available for keynote presentations helping retailers, brands and retail industry insiders explaining the current state and future of the retail industry in North America and around the world.