The Collaboration Conundrum

While many food professionals have adapted well to working remotely and are now comfortable using new technology to conduct their day-to-day work activities, more familiarity with Teams and Zoom has not led to an improvement in the formation and building of ideas.  In fact, many leaders report that the absence of office culture has reduced blue-sky exchanges within their organizations.  Research from the US reveals that before the pandemic employees spent an average of 43% of their worktime collaborating but that this number tumbled to just 27% in 2020.*  Likewise, with fewer public activities like conferences and trade shows intersecting with like-minded external collaborators has become harder as well.

For Joe Lake, CEO of the Canadian Food Innovation Network, this all adds up to bad news. As champions of food innovation, CFIN exists to stimulate innovation across the Canadian food sector. So, in September 2021, Joe challenged his team to find ways to help food innovators to easily interact with one another, access thought provoking content and learn about the new technologies and science required to elevate their businesses and increase their innovation capacity.

In this keynote speech, Joe Lake will reveal not only how CFIN has innovated internally to answer this need, but also what they’ve learned about keeping the innovation flames burning within both remote and in-person work environments.

Speaker: 

Joe Lake, PhD, Chief Executive Officer at the Canadian Food Innovation Network

Canada’s Import Replacement Opportunity

Boardroom conversations abound about the exciting animal protein product opportunities that are now within reach thanks to advancements in precision fermentation and cellular duplication technologies.  While the value of cellular protein innovation cannot be minimized, there is another exciting –  but less often discussed –  frontier open to food science driven companies: in the near future, imported ingredients such as vanilla, chocolate and other flavours can be made more safely and in abundance right here in Canada! But what does it take to get there?

Our expert panel will explore the opportunities, barriers and challenges that need to be understood by Canadian food, technology and ingredient companies who want to ready Canada to be more self-sufficient and able to satisfy consumer demand for locally produced, safe, high quality food products. Join us to learn more about why we must improve bio-reactors, create more cell farms and increase investor awareness about the Import Replacement opportunity on Canada’s doorstep.

Panelists:

• Ryan Philippe, Director, Corporate Development, Genomics Canada
• Evan Fraser, PhD, Director of Arrell Food Institute
• Susan Jorgensen, Programs Manager at Global Agri-Food Advancement Partnership (GAAP)

Moderator:

• Dana McCauley, Chief Experience Officer at the Canadian Food Innovation Network

SPEAKERS

Ryan Philippe, Director, Corporate Development, Genome Canada

Ryan develops and fine-tunes Genome Canada’s strategic approach to investment and innovation. He brings deep experience in strategic development and biotechnology in academia, private research and industry to his role, and is committed to advancing innovation in Canada and contributing to the development of a national sustainable bioeconomy.

As an academic, Ryan’s research focused on understanding how trees defend themselves against insects. He spent eight years building a start-up in the synthetic biology sector, inventing products to solve challenges in agriculture and crop protection, advanced materials, natural products and nutraceuticals. His skills include research and innovation management, business development, partnership management, grants and financing, due diligence, innovation strategy, intellectual property strategy and public communications.

Ryan obtained his PhD from the University of British Columbia and completed his post-doctoral studies at The Salk Institute for Biological Studies.

LINKEDIN PROFILE

Evan Fraser, PhD, Director of Arrell Food Institute

Evan is Director of Arrell Food Institute and a professor of Geography at the University of Guelph. There, Evan works to bring large and diverse teams together to develop strategies that balance our need to produce and distribute accessible, healthy, and nutritious food while stewarding the ecosystems on which we all depend for life. He believes that it is only by building bridges between the corporate sector, government, civil society, and academics that we will be able to create the food systems fit for the challenges of the 21st century.

Evan’s non-academic writings have appeared in dozens of publications including CNN and the Guardian, his 2010 book (co-authored with Andrew Rimas) Empires of Food: Feast, Famine and the Rise and Fall of Civilizations, was shortlisted for the James Beard Food Literature Award and his 2020 book (co-authored with Ian Mosby and Sarah Rotz) was awarded an honourable mention by the Science Writers of Canada. He is looking forward to the fall of 2022 when his next book (co-authored with Lenore Newman) will be published. It is called Dinner on Mars: The Technologies That Will Feed the Red Planet and Transform Agriculture on Earth. Evan’s web video series on “feeding nine billion” has been watched over 600,000 times, he has self-published a graphic novel called #FoodCrisis about a fictitious food crisis that hits North America in the 2020s. Evan has also published a card game about global food security that won a gold medal at the International “Serious Play” conference. The videos, the graphic novel and the card game form the basis of high school lesson plans that are used in classrooms around the world.

As a researcher, Evan is a co-author on over 100 academic papers and book chapters, played a leadership role on teams that have raised over $100M in research funding, and mentored around 50 graduate students. He is one of Canada’s most cited social scientists working on food and sustainability and between 2010-2020 was a Canada Research Chair. Between 2014-17 he was a Fellow of the Pierre Elliot Trudeau Foundation, is a Fellow of the Royal Canadian Geographical Society, and a member of the Royal Society of Canada’s College of New Scholars.

Evan also sits on several boards that advise government, industry and charities. This includes co-chairing the Canadian Food Policy Advisory Council and vice-chairing the Maple Leaf Centre for Action on Food Security. In addition, other past and present board roles include George Weston Ltd.’s Seeding Food Innovation scientific steering committee, the European Commission’s high level expert group on food system science, and participating on scientific advisory boards for Genome Quebec, Protein Industries Canada, Cubic Farms (a vertical farming start-up) and the University of the Fraser Valley’s Food and Agriculture Institute.

LINKEDIN PROFILE

Susan Jorgensen, Programs Manager at Global Agri-Food Advancement Partnership (GAAP)

LINKEDIN PROFILE

 

 

 

 

 

Dr. Joseph Lake, PhD, Chief Executive Officer, Canadian Food Innovation Network

Joseph Lake is a big picture thinker with deep food innovation, research and collaboration experience across the global food industry.

Joe’s career in diverse and progressive positions with the global powerhouse McCain Foods sparked his entrepreneurial spirit, confirmed his passion for transformative innovation, and honed his analytic and collaborative negotiating skills. While at McCain, he successfully created and launched a global food innovation platform, as well as gained knowledge of innovation network models, incubators and accelerators in other countries, including the U.S., U.K. and Europe.

Joe studied at Dalhousie University where his meticulous and thorough work in food science and technology enabled him to skip a master’s degree on route to completing his PhD. Joe is fluent in English and French.

LINKEDIN PROFILE

Dana McCauley, Chief Experience Officer at the Canadian Food Innovation Network

Dana McCauley is a value proposition driven innovator who has successfully launched many food products and programs in collaboration with domestic and international food companies and entrepreneurs.​

Beyond her corporate experiences in marketing, product development and creative services, Dana brings not-for-profit and academic expertise to her role. She was the founding Executive Director for Food Starter, a Toronto based food business incubator and accelerator that was recognized with an Ontario Premier’s Award for Agri-Food Innovation Excellence. As Director of New Venture Creation at the University of Guelph, Dana enabled agri-food innovators to transform their inventions into innovations that grow the economy and enhances Canada’s international reputation.

Dana has been a food media personality and keynote speaker. She is the President of the SIAL Canada Innovation Award jury. In 2017, Dana was recognized by WXN as one of Canada’s Most Powerful Women in the Trailblazers and Trendsetters category.

LINKEDIN PROFILE

The fee to participate as a Supplier Showcase Speaker is $1,250 for CIFST members and $2,000 for non-members. Your fee includes one speaker who will deliver 2 x 15 minute presentations (the second presentation is a repeat of the first), one six-foot table for displays, company logo placement on the CIFST website and in all event communications, onsite event signage and looping slide show.

Additional six-foot tables are available at $300/apiece. Exhibitor tabletop booth staff registration is extra – $100/person.

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