top of page
BLOG
Keep up with the conversation here.
Search
Perspective on Symbiosis and its Relation to Ethics in Food Choices
I thought I might take some time away from COVID-related stories to write about a term that gets thrown around a little in the vegetarian...
Mark Wickson
May 17, 20203 min read
0 comments
A Look at the Impact of COVID19 on Grocery Shopping in Canada
Statistics Canada released an interesting report today on recent grocery store sales in Canada. I thought I would provide a perspective...
Mike von Massow
May 11, 20203 min read
0 comments
An Integrated Beef Market Offers Protection from Plant Closures
Post by Brendan McDougall As scary as COVID-19 is, the potential for secondary consequences such as wide-scale food shortages are equally...
Mike von Massow
May 11, 20204 min read
0 comments
Is the Federal Student Support Killing Ag Labour?
I have seen several commentators in the past few days criticize the federal program offering support for students and new graduates...
Mike von Massow
Apr 29, 20203 min read
9 comments
In a COVID-19 World, is Local Better?
Our food system has weathered an unprecedented demand shift and shock over the past month. Overall, we have come out of it reasonably...
Mike von Massow
Apr 15, 20203 min read
0 comments
Farming in the Era of COVID-19
We are experiencing unprecedented disruption to normal life and commerce in order to flatten the pandemic curve due to COVID-19. Physical...
Mike von Massow
Apr 6, 20205 min read
0 comments
The Problems with Scale
Listening to the recent Freakonomics podcast “Policy-Making is not a Science (Yet)” encouraged me to stop and think more carefully about...
Andrew Baynham
Mar 30, 20203 min read
0 comments
An Exploration of Cultural Intangible Heritage
Many of us have heard of, perhaps even visited ourselves, a UNESCO heritage site. From the Great Wall of China to the Canadian Rocky...
Molly Gallant
Feb 5, 20205 min read
13 comments
Reflecting on Past Trends Reports
The Food Focus team generates an annual Food Trends Report to highlight key factors that will be front and center in the food discourse...
Mike von Massow
Dec 31, 20193 min read
0 comments
Trash Talk: Post 1 - Understanding household food waste
Trash Talk: A Mini Series on Household Food Waste Overview Food waste is now recognized around the world as a pressing environmental,...
Molly Gallant
Jul 16, 20195 min read
1 comment
Is Canada’s food policy biting off more than it can chew?
Last week, the Government of Canada released “Everyone at the Table”; a food policy for Canada. It has an ambitious agenda covering a...
Mike von Massow
Jun 24, 20192 min read
1 comment
Take care in interpreting food price news
The recent release of the May consumer price numbers for food generated considerable news. Year over year, the price of food has gone up...
Mike von Massow
Jun 20, 20192 min read
0 comments
The challenge of choice in food retail
Grocery stores are relatively low margin businesses. They key to profitability is to increase the size of the customer’s basket - how...
Mike von Massow
May 30, 20193 min read
0 comments
Meal Kits with Mark, Part 3
As discussed in my last blog post, meal kits will always have issues with variety. They need to be familiar enough that most people are...
Mark Wickson
May 27, 20195 min read
0 comments
The psychology of dynamic pricing in restaurants
Dynamic pricing is well established in some industries. Changes in airline prices for a specific date change over time. There was once...
Mike von Massow
May 24, 20193 min read
0 comments
Celery as a superfood?
I regularly get media calls asking for perspective on price changes for food products. In the past few days, I have been inundated with...
Mike von Massow
May 1, 20193 min read
5 comments
Ghosts of retail flyers past
I was recently given a framed copy of a Loblaws flyer from July 1938. The flyer provides some insight into how things have changed in...
Mike von Massow
Apr 29, 20193 min read
0 comments
Let’s not rush to judgement on Maple Leaf
Maple Leaf recently announced the construction of a manufacturing facility in Indiana for their Lightlife plant-based protein products...
Mike von Massow
Apr 22, 20193 min read
0 comments
Why do we shop the way we do?
I find myself to be an atypical grocery shopper. I usually visit the grocery store at least 2-3 times a week as it is on my way home from...
Andrew Baynham
Apr 15, 20194 min read
0 comments
My Vegan Mistake – misunderstanding a label
We recently wrote an article titled “Meat Demand is changing but its not because of the vegans.”. Our primary point was that there are...
Mike von Massow
Apr 4, 20193 min read
1 comment
RELATED PROJECTS
Considering the complexity of food, it is no surprise that conversations about it can be broad and diverse. In order to better understand how people think about food, Mike is involved in several projects. Learn more about each project below.
UNIVERSITY OF GUELPH SUSTAINABLE RESTAURANT PROJECT
Our team is a group of students, faculty and community partners that are committed to working towards a more sustainable future for the restaurant industry. Every year we hold a forum, bringing prominent speakers to the University of Guelph to discuss issues in the Canadian Restaurant Industry.
bottom of page