Consumers want to buy locally-produced food – but for most people it has to be cheap and easy to find. It has to be really easy to find. And as cheap as non-local food. Those, to me, are the most apparent insights from a major survey of consumers recently conducted by Sylvain Charlebois and colleagues […] Read more
Tag Archives food
Will the COVID crisis cause a food revolution?
Innovative technologies are waiting on the shelf, but will they finally be embraced?
There’s been lots of blather about exciting food and agriculture industry technological innovations. “Smart” everything has been talked about for more than a decade. My newspaper has published dozens of stories about the possibilities of blockchain. The “internet of things” is a term buzzing away at every farm and ag conference out there. But it’s […] Read more
Don’t take farming and food for granted says U of C report
Canadians and Canada’s governments shouldn’t take farming and food for granted. That’s the bottom line of a June 9 report from the University of Calgary’s School of Public Policy. “Food security in Canada is not something to be taken for granted and government policy action must reflect the essential service agriculture provides for our nation,” […] Read more
Don’t expect too much, no matter what happens with Meng
Whatever happens Wednesday, China will not be a market we can count on again
Tomorrow (Wednesday) a B.C. Supreme Court judge will release the ruling on whether or not to uphold the validity of Huawei executive Meng Wanzhou’s arrest and detention on a U.S. extradition request. A lot of people are hoping Meng gets released, goes back to China, that China calms down, the two Michaels are released and […] Read more
Is North America’s food supply system a disaster or a success story?
Under the stress of COVID-19 both the flaws and resiliency of the Canadian and U.S. food systems have become popular topics
Is our food system a disaster? Widespread food shortages on grocery store shelves make some think so. In the early days of COVID-19, when I saw empty shelves for some dairy products, flour and toilet paper I got pretty spooked about food security. When I heard about packing plants becoming rife with virus, hundreds of […] Read more
Will the wild changes in the grocery, food and farming systems survive the pandemic?
What will create lasting changes and what is transitory?
The food, farming and grocery sectors have been shocked by the coronavirus crisis. Packing plants have been temporarily shuttered, creating crises on hog farms and cattle feedlots that can’t move animals they have no space for. Food products that everybody has taken for granted for decades, such as flour and yeast, have become suddenly scarce, […] Read more
Are crops and meat Canada’s best soft power tools?
An agricultural think tank thinks they could be
Are you hoarding toilet paper? How about white flour? Cheese? From trips to my local supermarket and posts on my social media accounts, it seems like lots of people are. If you were planning to spend this month baking bread and using a lot of toilet paper and haven’t already stocked up, forget about it. […] Read more
Supply? Demand? What are we dealing with?
Economists and analysts are wrestling with enormous uncertainty
Most of what goes into creating the price of crops and livestock comes from supply and demand. More supply and less demand? Probably lower prices. More demand and less supply? Probably higher prices. It’s a little bit more complex than that, but those are some of the basics. But how do you project future prices […] Read more
Chill days of spring
Thinks about neighbours, friends, everybody you deal with in this fraught spring
Recent days on the eastern Prairies have been surreal, as beautiful blue skies and temperatures in the teens have melted snow and allowed the self-isolated masses to get outside into backyards, front steps and balconies, despite the overwhelming gloom emanating from every news broadcast and new story people can see and read. Today, as ice […] Read more
Consumers’ views a factor for protein sector
Consider the hot dog. Is it a sandwich? How the hot dog seems to consumers says a lot to plant protein food product developer and entrepreneur James Battershill about how the plant protein marketplace needs to be approached. “The reality is that consumers don’t think of a hot dog as a sandwich,” said Battershill, who […] Read more
