Food & Drink

Emily O'Brien headshot
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The road from incarceration to entrepreneurship is lined with popcorn

Business, Education, Food & Drink 0:25:46

Emily O’Brien is the founder of Comeback Snacks popcorn company. It all started when she went to prison. Before, Emily was an entrepreneur and social media professional, having created her own firm at a young age and enjoyed great success. Regrettably, addiction caused her to make some poor choices that culminated in a four-year jail term.

As her sentence began, Emily made it her mission to transform herself, get clean, and make a positive difference during her term. “I didn’t know how I’d make a difference at the time,” says Emily, “but I knew I would find something I cared about that would benefit from a purpose-driven facelift.”

Thus, Comeback Snacks (formerly known as Cons and Kernels) was born.

Upon her release, Emily made a decision to start a popcorn company that used high quality, health-conscious ingredients to create unique flavours inspired by the ones she found in prison. A fun, self-deprecating brand that would also help remove the stigma around people who had prior convictions and provide newly-released offenders with the chance at a fresh start through training, empowerment, and education.

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Daniel Cruz and Jay Kallu headshots
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Securing tomorrow’s food supply today

Agriculture, Business, Food & Drink, Tech 0:48:48

In conversation with CFO & co-founder Daniel Cruz and CEO Jay Kallu of Sea to Sky Farms (https://seatoskyfarms.com), an agtech company with a massively transformative purpose – ensuring food security for all. Sea to Sky has their own vertical farms technology in BC and AB, Canada; and offers branding and consulting solutions to land owners and farmers with development of infrastructure, product intelligence, sales, distribution and business growth.

In this podcast, we talk about food production evolution and the opportunity to use less water, less land, diversified labour, less energy, no pesticides or fertilizers to grow fresh, nutritious and reliable produce for local markets. And, we share 3 top ideas to exponentially accelerate to 50% food security in Canada.

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Nancy Portelance headshot
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Comment contribuer à la pérennité de la fromagerie artisanale du Québec

Business, Food & Drink, Retail 0:53:55

Quelques années après avoir travaillé dans le secteur de l’aviation, en 1999, Nancy et son mari ont eu l’étincelle pour démarrer un réseau de distribution pour les fromagers artisanaux québécois : Plaisirs Gourmets.

L’entreprise a d’abord démarré avec le fromage Pied-de-Vent des Iles-de-la-Madeleine et rapidement l’intérêt des artisans fromagers et négociants a conduit à la création d’un réseau représentant aujourd’hui une quinzaine de fromageries artisanales, 1 fabricant de fondue et un charcutier.

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Lourdes Juan headshot
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A passion for taking care of her community

Food & Drink, Tech 00:23:30

Lourdes Juan is a Calgary-based entrepreneur and Urban planner, with a Masters in Environmental Design, who has founded a diverse array of organizations including Hive Developments, Soma Spa, Knead Technologies, Leftovers and Fresh Routes.

As a daughter of immigrants, Lourdes’ parents instilled in her a passion for taking care of her community. This has been a driving force behind her tireless work to solve problems including by creating two non-profit organizations that address dignified food access and newly founded a tech company to redirect food surplus. Lourdes’ community advocacy is vast and also includes serving on numerous local and national boards related to urban planning and design, development appeals, affordable housing, impact investment and business leadership.

Lourdes is a mom to a one-year-old son who inspires her to continue to work towards building a brighter future for Calgary.

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Matthew von Teichman headshot
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Starting up… get some great insights from a start-up master

Business, Food & Drink, Health and Wellness, Investment 00:22:40

Matthew von Teichman is a serial entrepreneur and one of the country’s biggest leaders in the Natural Products category (founder of Spore Wellness, GreenSpace brands, Life Choices, among just a few). He’s started 9 companies and it’s obvious he loves the energy and innovation of a startup! and he’s made his entrepreneurial drive pay off. He’s now going back to his roots and doing startups in the e-commerce and food space, as well as helping entrepreneurs with their businesses as an investor, mentor, and advocate to help them avoid some of the many mistakes I’ve made. Check out his latest venture at Purplesful.

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Hifa Maleki headshot
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Bringing Latin-inspired cuisine to Edmonton

Alcohol, Business, Food & Drink 00:17:57

Hifa Maleki specializes in fast-paced strategic planning for aggressive growth models and is known for building, scaling, and executing brand and business systems/best practices to support strategic, successful and sustainable growth.

For the last 13+ years, she has been incredibly active and relentlessly committed to building and growing great franchise brands in Canada. She has driven unparalleled growth across Canada through effective Strategic Growth Planning which includes impacting high-level achievement in both Franchise and Unit Level Sales. She has been directly responsible for the growth of Orangetheory Fitness in Canada, building over 110 locations within 4 years while ensuring that quality and company values were being retained and delivered through each location. She believes in working with talented people, training, developing, and coaching them to drive the success of the companies she works with. She feels very strongly that the success of a brand is highly connected to the people behind it at corporate and the people in front of it, the staff. Her approach to successful business development is to appropriately and carefully select great people, select great real estate, and work very hard to protect the brand promise for the consumers.

Hifa is currently an owner and managing partner at El Corazon, El Beso and Pablo Cocktail Lounge. For El Corazon, as a new brand, she built all the systems, processes, training, and resources to ensure the business was set up for success operationally and supports managing the operations with the current management team. Hifa is also incredibly experienced with cocktail and menu development, working closely with her business partner and the Chef to ensure that all brands in this group’s portfolio are aligned with the respective brands while maintaining profitable cost control thresholds.

Prior to Orangetheory Fitness, she was in the hospitality industry in senior-level positions for over 12+ years. Operating one the busiest Joey Restaurant in Canada with over $11M annual revenue then joining the Famoso Neapolitan Pizza brand and supporting its growth of over 40+ locations within her 4 years with the company.

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Vincent Chatigny headshot
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Un restaurant complet 3 mois à l’avance depuis 2015 voici un des succès de Vincent Chatigny de Chez Biceps B.B.Q

Business, Food & Drink, Retail 00:33:24

Encore à l’école de cuisine, Vincent Chatigny commence sa carrière en 1998 au Laurie Raphael ou déjà, les produits locaux sont mis à l’honneur dans un cadre gastronomique.

Six ans plus tard, il quitte pour travailler, entre autres, avec les italiens ou il se découvre une véritable passion pour une cuisine traditionnelle simple, savoureuse et un modèle d’affaire axé sur la passion et la performance. Par la suite, un passage à la Boucherie de la ferme Eumatimi ou il approfondit ses connaissances autant techniques que sur le métier de fermier en travaillant étroitement avec (feu) Mario Pilon, un éleveur bovin devenu boucher. Des stages en France, cours de nutrition, Vincent à aussi enseigné durant un an à l’école hôtelière de la Capitale.

C’est au cours de ses nombreux voyages à travers l’Amérique du Nord dans le cadre de l’émission Bouffe en Cavale, une série qu’il a coanimée pendant sept saisons sur les ondes d’Évasion, qu’il a développé un lien étroit entre son style de cuisine, le contact avec le produit brut et l’engagement social d’un restaurant.

C’est ainsi qu’en décembre 2015, il a ouvert Chez Biceps B.B.Q, ou les produits locaux sont mis en valeur dans un environnement fortement inspiré par la culture B.B.Q. du sud des États-Unis. Une carte des vins originale, des bières de microbrasseries et un grand choix de whiskys nord-américain côtoient le fumoir artisanal texan de 1 000 lb fonctionnant au bois d’érable.

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Adam Bent headshot
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Seafood that is changing consumers’ perception of the category

Food & Drink, Tech 00:26:46

As Scout’s CEO and co-founder, Adam Bent leads the team toward bringing Scout’s mission to life – to make deliciously crafted seafood that changes how consumers perceive and experience the category.

Adam joined Scout in 2018 with a passion for sustainability, product innovation, and brand experience. Brand founder and acclaimed Chef Charlotte Langley tapped Adam to help transform Scout from her side hustle into the rapidly emerging omni-channel brand that it is today. Under Adam’s leadership, Scout doubled its annual revenue from 2020 to 2021, expanded beyond its Canadian headquarters into the United States, and raised a total of $4 million USD to date.

Previous to Scout, Adam was a technology entrepreneur building VC-backed businesses as the co-founder of thisopenspace (2016-2018) and Uppercase (2016-2018). No stranger to the food industry, Adam also served as the Vice President at Provender (2014-2015), a TechStars backed online marketplace that addressed inefficiencies in local food delivery to the wholesale industry. Adam was the Canadian manager for Urbanspoon (2012-2013) before its acquisition and is a partner at Prairie Boy Organic Bakery (2015 – present) in Toronto, Canada.

The food-tech entrepreneur turned seafood expert is a founding member of the SeafoodCollab, an industry group of emerging seafood CPG brands that are committed to a regenerative ocean food system and increased consumer engagement within sustainable seafood. Adam also sits on the board of directors for the Gulf of Georgia Cannery, a national historic site representing the historical significance of Canada’s west coast fishing industry.

Entrepreneurs are the backbone of Canada’s economy. To support Canada’s businesses, subscribe to our YouTube channel and follow us on Facebook, Instagram, LinkedIn and Twitter.

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Nicole Matos headshot
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Tackling unexpected challenges with fearless determination

Agriculture, Construction, Design, Food & Drink, Tech 0:24:13

Nicole Matos is a Metis woman, wife, mother of three, President of Rivet Construction and Founder of Oonnie Food Technologies. Leading her construction company for over a decade and now founding a food tech company, Nicole loves to tackle unexpected challenges with fearless determination. You will often hear Nicole say that her successes have mostly come from trying everything the wrong way first.

As an indigenous business Rivet is open to talking about potential partnerships or joint ventures. Rivet currently operates mostly in Alberta, however has a satellite office in Kelowna and some presence in SK. Rivet’s focus is commercial construction, commercial preventative maintenance and design build.

Oonnie is Farmers Market online – it gives you an opportunity to sell your products all day everyday without ever having to set up a physical booth or stand in the rain. Oonnie is like Etsy for food. Oonnie provides a platform and tools to support and help food producers grow their business.

Entrepreneurs are the backbone of Canada’s economy. To support Canada’s businesses, subscribe to our YouTube channel and follow us on Facebook, Instagram, LinkedIn and Twitter.

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Dino Falvo headshot
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Offering an authentic gelato experience with family roots from Calabria, Italy

Distribution, Food & Drink, Retail 00:27:01

Dino Falvo is VP Business Development, Alberta-East for Mario’s Gelati and Director, Brand & Strategic Development and Owner/Operator of Amato Gelato Cafe. The two businesses operate together in providing authentic gelato to stores and restaurants across Canada as well as offering an authentic Italian experience in its cafes. The cafe brand is now ready for franchise opportunities across Canada.

Entrepreneurs are the backbone of Canada’s economy. To support Canada’s businesses, subscribe to our YouTube channel and follow us on Facebook, Instagram, LinkedIn and Twitter.

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