Latest / The Future Herd / 6: Dana McCauley — Building Canada’s Food Innovation Ecosystem

Transcript

6: Dana McCauley — Building Canada’s Food Innovation Ecosystem · The Future Herd

• 0:00
  Hi, I'm Jesse Hirsh and welcome to the Future Herd.
• 0:07
  If Canada is serious about becoming a global AgriFood powerhouse, it will be
• 0:12
  because of leaders like Dana McCauley.
• 0:15
  Dana is one of the most experienced and generous innovation leaders
• 0:19
  in this country's food sector.
• 0:22
  Trained as a chef, shaped by food media, battle tested inside
• 0:26
  manufacturing, and now operating at the national level of commercialization
• 0:31
  and ecosystem development.
• 0:33
  She has seen the food system from plate to plant to policy.
• 0:38
  But what makes her exceptional isn't simply that breadth.
• 0:42
  It's her catalytic energy.
• 0:44
  Dana has a rare ability to move knowledge across boundaries.
• 0:49
  Translating between entrepreneurs and executives, researchers and
• 0:53
  manufacturers, visionaries and operators, she doesn't hoard insight.
• 0:59
  She distributes it generously.
• 1:02
  And in a sector as fragmented as AgriFood, that habit of sharing may be
• 1:08
  more powerful than any single innovation.
• 1:12
  In this conversation, we explore her journey from kitchens to
• 1:15
  corporate leadership, to national food innovation strategy.
• 1:20
  We unpack what commercialization really demands why culture inside organizations
• 1:26
  matters as much as technology and what Canada must get, right?
• 1:31
  If we want our food companies, not just to start but to scale.
• 1:36
  If you care about the future, competitiveness, resilience, and
• 1:40
  intelligence of Canada's food system, you'll wanna listen closely.
• 1:47
  How did you get to where you are now?
• 1:49
  Professionally in terms of your focus and your expertise.
• 1:53
  'cause I think that sets up our focus on the future.
• 1:58
  So my, my personal professional.
• 2:01
  Story is that can be summed up by saying I've just gotten
• 2:04
  further away from people's mouths.
• 2:06
  I started out with chefs training and worked in fine dining and
• 2:11
  decided that was really hard.
• 2:13
  And fortunately I had a university background that set me up to work
• 2:18
  in magazines and that kind of thing.
• 2:20
  So I went from.
• 2:22
  Being like right there where I could see the people eating
• 2:24
  the food I had touched to.
• 2:26
  Then being a step further away writing the recipes that people would make at home.
• 2:31
  Then I left doing that full-time and become a freelancer.
• 2:35
  Started writing things like, you know, a newsletter called Top Line Trends.
• 2:39
  And that got me inbound requests from businesses.
• 2:43
  To be perfectly honest, I didn't realize I was well suited
• 2:46
  to work in the food sector.
• 2:48
  Other than, as, you know, a service provider of either words or, or food And
• 2:53
  businesses came to me and said, Hey, this is really cool what you're talking about.
• 2:56
  You could help our business.
• 2:57
  And I was like, can I?
• 2:58
  So that led to a number of years where I helped businesses to develop
• 3:03
  recipe campaigns and new products, and I ended up with a TE's kitchen
• 3:08
  and staff and all that kind of stuff.
• 3:10
  Eventually.
• 3:10
  Sold that to one of my employees.
• 3:12
  Then I went to work for a food manufacturer who had
• 3:16
  been my, one of my clients.
• 3:18
  They wanted to have a, a complete sort of cultural change in
• 3:21
  their, their organization and thought I could help with that.
• 3:24
  And that, you know, led to about.
• 3:26
  years of working as an executive in frozen food companies.
• 3:30
  And then when that all sort of came to its sort of natural end I was approached
• 3:35
  by the city of Toronto to be on the board of something called Food Starter.
• 3:39
  And I said, well, who's gonna run the place?
• 3:41
  Who would be, you know, who, who am I going to be managing and
• 3:45
  making sure that they don't take risks and they didn't have anybody.
• 3:48
  So I said, well.
• 3:49
  I could help you for a year.
• 3:50
  I could help get it up and running.
• 3:52
  This is kind of a hard thing and you'll have a hard time
• 3:54
  finding somebody who can do it.
• 3:56
  And they thought that was a good idea.
• 3:58
  And two and a half years later, still there.
• 4:01
  And I was recruited to go to the University of Guelph to help their
• 4:05
  agricultural researchers and food researchers to commercialize their
• 4:09
  IP to understand, you know, the elasticity of what they had discovered.
• 4:13
  And that was a super cool thing.
• 4:15
  And little did I know I had this 360 degree experience from all of those
• 4:20
  different jobs that set me up to come here to CFIN and a network that
• 4:25
  unites all of those different folks.
• 4:27
  I do wanna spend some time today talking about that network and the,
• 4:31
  the kind of crucial role it already plays, and will play in terms of
• 4:35
  the future of our ag food system.
• 4:37
  But what I love about your story is it is a kind of unique leadership path
• 4:42
  that not everyone has the opportunities you've had, to your point to get that
• 4:47
  360 degree view, but also to acquire the knowledge that you've been able to
• 4:53
  in terms of the perspectives and the roles and the different aspects of the
• 4:57
  industry that you've been involved in.
• 5:00
  But there's, there's one piece I want to tease out, which is why do you think
• 5:04
  that trends are both still valuable today, but the kind of thing that.
• 5:11
  Is unusually scarce.
• 5:14
  Like you would think that trends are something that are accessible that
• 5:18
  anyone can pay attention to, and yet it, it feels as if it is a kind of
• 5:23
  unique characteristic, not just that you, yourself possess, but that remains
• 5:28
  in demand, that that is something that people are still really desiring to know.
• 5:33
  So I'd love it if you take a moment just to kind of reflect on the role
• 5:36
  that it plays within the industry.
• 5:38
  I think it's actually become harder to.
• 5:42
  Track trends and to feel like you have a grasp on what's happening
• 5:47
  external to your own little world.
• 5:49
  When I first started out and I was always working in food trends to be be clear, so
• 5:54
  this might not track against other type of of trends, but it was pretty simple.
• 5:58
  All I really had to do was read all of the trade magazines.
• 6:03
  Go to a few trade shows and hang out with my chef friends
• 6:07
  and see what was exciting them.
• 6:09
  And I could distill that quite simply into fairly easy to verify you
• 6:16
  know, insights that would track to growth, because that was the pattern.
• 6:21
  with the rise of social media and influencer culture and algorithms
• 6:26
  that feed people more of what they've already been looking for it's way,
• 6:31
  way harder to see where something's going to bubble up and what it
• 6:35
  might, you know, might do as far as.
• 6:39
  the food business goes like the same TikTok influencer who, you know, uses
• 6:44
  cucumbers today and causes a sellout at the farmer's market is, could put out a
• 6:50
  video tomorrow that doesn't hit right.
• 6:52
  So it's a very different pattern and I think that's one of the
• 6:56
  reasons people continue to ask.
• 6:59
  For guidance is because what I, you know, figured out fairly early
• 7:03
  on was quite easy to duplicate once you knew what I was doing.
• 7:07
  Now it's, you know, you have to dig into a lot more data and you have to
• 7:12
  really, it's hard to do in on your own individually because the algorithm
• 7:16
  almost prevents you from doing it.
• 7:18
  You have to kind of work in a team and see what other people are also seeing and,
• 7:23
  and take a more of a heat map approach.
• 7:25
  Well, and I think indirectly that partly speaks to the value of the Canadian Food
• 7:30
  Innovation Network in that it is no longer possible to be that sole actor, that
• 7:36
  E, even the heroic entrepreneur still.
• 7:39
  Needs a, a community of, of fellows, a community of people engaged with the same
• 7:45
  energy, engaged with the same momentum.
• 7:47
  So I'd, I'd love for you to kind of connect that both the need to kind
• 7:52
  of pay attention to changing market conditions, to identify opportunities
• 7:56
  and the need to do so in a network.
• 7:59
  Your journey almost seems self-evident in reverse.
• 8:03
  But how has it been for you to foster this kind of genuine collaboration to
• 8:09
  encourage people to see the value in a network, but at the same time kind
• 8:14
  of help build it from the ground up?
• 8:16
  Yeah, I have to say
• 8:18
  Yeah, I
• 8:18
  That.
• 8:18
  it's been surprising and gratifying.
• 8:21
  And in some ways, just, yeah, a real amazing learning experience because it's
• 8:28
  one thing to put stuff out there, and you and I both have, have experience, you
• 8:33
  know, being in the broadcast world, TV and radio, and, and we know that, you know,
• 8:38
  having an opinion and a point of view can be a wonderful way to, start conversations
• 8:44
  and, and to create some inbound.
• 8:46
  But when you're creating something like Yodel, which is CFIN's you
• 8:50
  know, virtual online portal.
• 8:54
  You can't just, it can't be one sided.
• 8:56
  Right?
• 8:57
  It's, it's not a newspaper.
• 8:58
  It, it, it's designed for, for interaction.
• 9:01
  And it's in that interaction where the really interesting stuff pops up and
• 9:06
  where you see these interprovincial opportunities and where you discover these
• 9:10
  unlikely intersections, but that only happens if, if others will participate.
• 9:15
  And that was the big risk with creating a, a virtual element to our network was that.
• 9:20
  People would either one, not like it, two come and just, you know,
• 9:26
  loiter and, and, and take but amazingly people in the food sector
• 9:31
  who have every you know, justifiable right to tend towards, you know.
• 9:37
  their trade secrets and keeping their information to themselves
• 9:41
  for competitive reasons.
• 9:42
  They aren't.
• 9:43
  They, they're really out there helping each other.
• 9:45
  And it's not just people who are in non-competitive you know,
• 9:49
  like a baker talking to, you know, somebody who makes soup.
• 9:52
  It's actually soup.
• 9:54
  People talking to soup people sometimes, and that's really awesome to see.
• 9:57
  It kind of renews your faith in, in humanity, to be perfectly honest.
• 10:02
  Well, and it's, it's the depth and substance of yodel that, that
• 10:06
  I found really quite remarkable.
• 10:08
  And on, on the one hand, I, I see this as an avid learner that, that part
• 10:12
  of my interest in the ag food sector is to learn as much of it as I can.
• 10:18
  But to your point, some of the industry intelligence, some of the
• 10:22
  market intelligence that's shared.
• 10:24
  Just amongst people trying to source partners or, or try to find a packaging.
• 10:30
  It, it speaks to me that we're seeing a glimpse of the future of
• 10:35
  the sector that in Yoda we're getting a glimpse of the combination of
• 10:40
  collaboration, transparency, and markets.
• 10:44
  I, I'd love for you to kind of e extrapolate in, in the kind of blue sky
• 10:49
  sense where you think that could go.
• 10:51
  That as, as yodel continues to grow, as more people kind of recognize
• 10:56
  the inherent value that it offers.
• 10:59
  You know, this, this gets to our point about the future that I think, you
• 11:03
  know, that William Gibson line and the future's already here, it's just
• 11:06
  not, you know, evenly distributed.
• 11:08
  You are experiencing part of that future.
• 11:10
  So I'd love for you to share with, with our listeners, you know,
• 11:14
  where, where you think it's headed.
• 11:15
  Well, it's interesting.
• 11:16
  I, I love William Gibson by the way, and another day I'll tell you
• 11:19
  a story about how I embarrassed myself in front of him one time.
• 11:22
  But another author I, I love is Ian McEwen and.
• 11:26
  He and machines like me.
• 11:27
  There was a great line, which I probably won't get perfect, but there
• 11:30
  was a line about, you know how our shiny new toys and innovations the
• 11:36
  next day, you know, seem ordinary.
• 11:39
  And, and that's of course always true of, of innovation.
• 11:42
  You know, the day you got electricity back in the day was probably transformative.
• 11:47
  And two weeks later you were probably complaining that the
• 11:49
  light wasn't in the right.
• 11:50
  Part of the room.
• 11:51
  But and, and I have to caution myself from doing that when I think about yodel,
• 11:56
  because we have accomplished a lot.
• 11:58
  We said we would have 1500 people on yodel by you know.
• 12:04
  2025 and as of September, 2025, we probably had about 7,000.
• 12:09
  And today, now in December, 2025, we have 8,000 and we predict that we'll
• 12:14
  have 20,000 users in the next five years.
• 12:17
  So it's you know, far exceeded what we expected to be, and yet to me it seems
• 12:24
  very ordinary and quite frustrating that we aren't already at 20,000.
• 12:28
  What's cool about what I'm seeing happening here is that a lot of
• 12:33
  the things like I said, like people hoarding their trade secrets, et
• 12:37
  cetera, that we, you know, had as assumptions are, are not true.
• 12:41
  And we are seeing that this very fragmented sector.
• 12:45
  Is very willing to, to work together and eager to, to help one another.
• 12:51
  And I think if we go from right now, yodel is a lot of discussions and there's some
• 12:56
  tools, there's a funding finder, there's a resource finder, which is, is is evolving
• 13:01
  and becoming better by the day, but.
• 13:04
  There's going to be this amazing opportunity to use a virtual space,
• 13:09
  I think, to, to create pathways where anybody who is at any point in
• 13:16
  an innovation cycle to come in and, you know, kind of like Harry Potter,
• 13:21
  sorting hat, you know, just type in what they're, they're trying to do.
• 13:25
  I think we can build the structures that can scan through all of the projects
• 13:30
  that we've done as CFI and probably case studies from universities, et cetera,
• 13:35
  and create pathways that can just help somebody in the moment to see what every
• 13:42
  other person who has been recorded doing the same the same type of, of journey
• 13:48
  what they did and direct them to all kinds of different resources and help them to.
• 13:53
  Get things that they would otherwise take months and months and months to
• 13:58
  find and have to have deep relationships to get to the right people, to
• 14:02
  just have that at their fingertips.
• 14:04
  And when that happens, it.
• 14:06
  Innovation's gonna be accessible to so many more people, it's just gonna
• 14:10
  really, you know, instead of failing forward to the degree that people who
• 14:14
  came before them had to fail forward, they're, you know, they're going to
• 14:18
  succeed much, much more frequently.
• 14:20
  So I'm pretty excited about how we might be able to accelerate the pace
• 14:25
  of, of innovation in the future.
• 14:27
  Well, and, and I think that also evokes a powerful point about collaboration.
• 14:32
  That collaboration is this buzzword.
• 14:35
  You hear a lot in the sector, but you, you just evoked the idea
• 14:38
  that not only do we not have.
• 14:40
  To repeat the mistakes that others have made, it's almost as if we could
• 14:44
  imagine a commercial equivalent to the idea of standing on the shoulders
• 14:48
  of giants that we don't have to keep asking companies to go through the same
• 14:54
  hurdles, but create a network, create an infrastructure that allows them
• 14:59
  to benefit from each other's success.
• 15:02
  How, how do you imagine that scaling up?
• 15:04
  How do you imagine that?
• 15:05
  You know, to your point, not just in terms of yodels growth, but
• 15:08
  the sector's growth as a whole.
• 15:10
  Well, I think human nature might be the biggest hurdle we'll have because
• 15:13
  of course we all love to feel like we, you know, as Frank Sinatra,
• 15:18
  it's a, you know, I did it my way.
• 15:20
  And there's a, a certain bit of arrogance that I think many
• 15:24
  entrepreneurs need to succeed.
• 15:27
  So some of it will depend on, on people's willingness.
• 15:29
  To learn from others and, and to, you know, be creative
• 15:34
  from a, a base, a solid base.
• 15:36
  it's like most movements, most new things.
• 15:40
  There's a few early adopters and they start talking about it and then
• 15:45
  a couple of other people, and those are the most important ones, come in.
• 15:48
  Validate that what those folks said is true, and, and then
• 15:52
  it becomes ubiquitous, right?
• 15:53
  it doesn't happen overnight.
• 15:55
  And, and that's why I, I say quite frequently in my conversations,
• 15:59
  particularly with government partners, that we need this culture
• 16:03
  change in the Canadian food sector because a lot of people don't realize
• 16:08
  that most of the food companies in Canada are small, like 91% of the.
• 16:14
  In Canada who are putting the food that you, you know, buy at the
• 16:18
  grocery store and at restaurants you know, out there for you.
• 16:21
  Have fewer than a hundred employees, and most of them have you know,
• 16:26
  fewer than than 50 employees.
• 16:28
  So these are not big companies.
• 16:30
  So if we have this culture change, if we get, you know, 25% of them
• 16:35
  adopting, you know, new ways to be.
• 16:38
  And new ways to be innovative.
• 16:40
  And then we can grow that to 30, 40, 50.
• 16:43
  We can really have an outsized effect.
• 16:45
  'cause we're not talking about, you know, these massive, big companies
• 16:49
  that because of documentaries and because of books, you know, like
• 16:52
  Food Inc and et cetera, et cetera.
• 16:55
  I think Canadians.
• 16:56
  Don't necessarily realize that Canada's food business isn't really
• 17:00
  dominated by the multinationals and, and these monolithic companies
• 17:05
  that, that we maybe think they are.
• 17:08
  So when we remember that the people who are running these.
• 17:11
  These great businesses putting these fantastic products onto the
• 17:15
  shelves are actually our neighbors.
• 17:18
  It, it does is the empathy that we as consumers get, I
• 17:21
  think is, is, is different.
• 17:23
  And I, and I think then we understand what the challenges are in a different way.
• 17:27
  'cause it's not getting into the boardrooms of publicly traded
• 17:31
  companies and getting them to buy in.
• 17:32
  It's getting really busy.
• 17:35
  Very passionate, hardworking folks to just slow down for a second, say, oh, yeah.
• 17:41
  I, I, I could work a little bit smarter than I'm working today.
• 17:45
  Well, kind of evokes the concept of the chef and the chef as leader, because on
• 17:50
  the one hand, you know, chefs are leaders.
• 17:54
  Within our communities, and to your point, they are.
• 17:57
  Often small businesses that are hardworking, that are constantly grinding,
• 18:02
  but there is an ethic of sharing, correct me if I'm wrong, wi within that identity.
• 18:08
  And when you talk about cultural change, what I was also hearing
• 18:11
  is a new kind of leadership.
• 18:13
  and a new kind of leadership that focuses on sharing, that focuses on empowerment,
• 18:18
  that to your point, recognizes that Canada's food system is kind of
• 18:22
  unique in terms of our small players.
• 18:25
  So I, I would love again, this may be something you take for granted,
• 18:28
  but I would love for you to kind of.
• 18:30
  Unpack your model of leadership and, and the way in which, to your
• 18:36
  point, it's not about trade secrets.
• 18:38
  It it, it's not about, you know the kind of ego driven, I did it my way.
• 18:43
  It's very much about how do we learn from each other so that we can adapt to a
• 18:48
  very tumultuous and volatile marketplace.
• 18:51
  I think you picked up on something.
• 18:53
  You're right.
• 18:53
  I probably hadn't thought about very consciously before, but I think it might
• 18:57
  actually be you know, maybe one of the elements of of my ability to do some of
• 19:02
  the things I've done, the fact that I did start in a, a chef environment and not a
• 19:08
  food manufacturing environment, because you very rightly point out that for
• 19:11
  chefs, it is all about sharing, it's about community, it's relationships with the
• 19:15
  farmer, relationships with your customer.
• 19:17
  But you know, my husband owned a restaurant.
• 19:21
  Yorkville, you know, one of the fanciest neighborhoods in Canada,
• 19:25
  you know, with very big name chefs.
• 19:28
  And they would routinely, if somebody, you know, at eight o'clock on a Friday
• 19:33
  night had run out of lamb, you'd have a dishwasher running from one
• 19:38
  restaurant to another, taking land.
• 19:41
  it was not unusual, right?
• 19:42
  For, for that kind of thing to happen because they recognized that
• 19:47
  in a neighborhood like Yorkville.
• 19:49
  Having lots of good restaurants means that you have lots of
• 19:52
  customers for everybody, right?
• 19:53
  And they work together.
• 19:55
  But in food manufacturing, that is quite different.
• 19:58
  I worked at a one food manufacturing company that still
• 20:01
  exists, so I won't name them.
• 20:03
  And I was so surprised.
• 20:04
  I was vice president of Marketing and Innovation and we had several tractor
• 20:09
  trailer loads full of old equipment.
• 20:11
  And I was like, you know, looking at our, our financials in one of our
• 20:15
  board meetings, and I was like our senior management meetings rather.
• 20:18
  And I was like, well, why are we spending this many thousands of dollars?
• 20:22
  Let's just sell that equipment.
• 20:23
  And the CEO was like, no, we can't sell that equipment.
• 20:26
  It's then people can make, well, we're making exactly the same way.
• 20:29
  And I'm like, okay, well fine.
• 20:32
  But you know, that's, that's a cost we don't need.
• 20:36
  So very different approaches.
• 20:38
  And I do think that that, yeah, the, the, the hospitality part of the food
• 20:44
  business and probably the farming part of the food business are very much rooted in
• 20:49
  community and everybody working together and sharing and, and and that, that
• 20:53
  those are good lessons for, for folks down into the food manufacturing space.
• 20:59
  To learn from because it, you know, we keep quoting different books and songs
• 21:04
  and stuff and, and, and cliches today, but it, it literally does take a village.
• 21:09
  In Canada, we're, we're such a geographically big country that
• 21:15
  really there it's, you know.
• 21:17
  If we think about shortening supply chains and making a resilient local economies
• 21:22
  to make a resilient national economy, there is room for there to be, you know
• 21:29
  an Ontario company that is fantastic at the same thing that a Vancouver company
• 21:34
  or a BC company is fantastic at as well.
• 21:37
  And they, they can work together to, you know, obviously within reasonable limits.
• 21:43
  Well, and, and you also, I think indirectly just connected some dots
• 21:47
  for me there in terms of young people and leadership because the other
• 21:51
  thing that both farming and the food service industry kind of have in
• 21:55
  common is it's the easiest way that young people get into the industry.
• 21:59
  Number
• 22:00
  whether it's serving.
• 22:02
  is, is restaurants.
• 22:04
  Yeah.
• 22:04
  Exactly.
• 22:05
  And, and what's fascinating about your story is it, it gives this vision of
• 22:10
  the future in which we have not just upward mobility, but cross-sectoral
• 22:15
  mobility because we, we, I think one thing you and I both hold quite
• 22:20
  deeply is the belief that we need more young people in positions of power.
• 22:24
  We need more young people feeling as if they have a stake in this system.
• 22:28
  Could you speculate or imagine on how we make those links so that
• 22:32
  those young people who are serving tables can imagine a future anywhere
• 22:37
  within the sector as long as they're willing to learn and adapt.
• 22:40
  I think that, you know, when I look at people under 30 right now, which I
• 22:44
  guess would be Gen Zs and, and Alphas the few that I have frequent contact
• 22:50
  with seem to, have a very different mindset than I had at that age.
• 22:53
  You know, at at 29 had my own business.
• 22:58
  I was married to someone who had their own business.
• 23:00
  We had every, you know, we couldn't afford it then, but we were, knew
• 23:05
  we were gonna be able to buy a house and we were gonna, you know, have
• 23:07
  nice things and, and all that stuff.
• 23:10
  Young people right now.
• 23:12
  Feel like they have a lot of limitations.
• 23:15
  I don't hear them talking about being able to, to own homes and do a lot of the
• 23:21
  aspirational things that, that felt like almost a you know, like a, a, a right,
• 23:26
  that I, I assumed that I, I, if I worked hard, that I would just get those things.
• 23:32
  So I think we have to start with helping them to feel.
• 23:36
  to hope and dream and, and, you know, and, and, and to aspire.
• 23:41
  I think that's a, a societal issue right now.
• 23:45
  but then when it comes to the food sector, so many of people in those
• 23:50
  cohorts are you know, there's so well educated and they've been exposed to so
• 23:54
  much world information and they, they've.
• 23:58
  up watching people like Greta Thornberg you know, kind of stand in her power
• 24:02
  and own an issue and be effective.
• 24:05
  So they're quite purpose driven and that's what's so wonderful about
• 24:08
  the food business is you can make a living and accomplish a lot of
• 24:13
  those, those historical milestones.
• 24:16
  But you also can do a lot of really good work.
• 24:20
  Really you know, good stuff for your community while having
• 24:24
  a, a really great business.
• 24:25
  And so many of the skills that people are coming out of college and university
• 24:30
  with are transferable to the food sector.
• 24:32
  But young people don't know that.
• 24:33
  They don't see it.
• 24:34
  We aren't telling them that, Hey, your data science degree or your math.
• 24:40
  Degree is useful because, we're all, creating and using a lot of data machine
• 24:46
  learning is one of the most powerful tools for helping food companies to become more.
• 24:52
  Productive and it's amazing.
• 24:54
  And, and that's the paradox.
• 24:55
  I think that on the one hand we see the potential in young people, but on the
• 25:01
  other hand, they may not have the vision that our age and wisdom affords us.
• 25:07
  I think on the one hand that is the leadership role we can play as aging
• 25:12
  or almost aging professionals that we can help them see that vision.
• 25:16
  But let me ask you this, what excites you about the future that you could
• 25:22
  share or frame to your point as an invitation for young people to
• 25:27
  get more involved in this sector?
• 25:29
  To really see that there are no limits outside of their imagination.
• 25:33
  I would say, for the young people who have been reared on sci-fi and
• 25:40
  video games that include, sort of magical realism and future, the
• 25:44
  William Gibson readers there that.
• 25:48
  It's gonna like, we're in the golden age of food science right now.
• 25:51
  I say that all the time and it is really exciting.
• 25:55
  If you think about what is possible.
• 26:00
  now using cellular agriculture and cultivated, you know, types of types of
• 26:06
  models to make foods using, well, even air, you know, if you, if you think
• 26:11
  about what we can do with precision fermentation and all of these other
• 26:15
  technologies, it is feasible that in a couple of decades, maybe three, that.
• 26:22
  If you were a chef, you could say to a group of food scientists, you could
• 26:27
  say, I'd like you to create a pork chop for me that has the flavor of of
• 26:34
  Dutch tulip fed pork and the fatty.
• 26:38
  Consciousness of iberico pork, and that literally will be possible.
• 26:44
  We have companies already here in Canada like liven who are working on
• 26:49
  the collagen piece of that pork chop.
• 26:51
  We have companies like Genuine Taste who are working on the fat.
• 26:55
  We have companies like Ara who are working on, you know, the, what the,
• 26:59
  the, know, the, the, the duplicating, the juiciness and, and and the color
• 27:04
  that you know, that, that the animal's blood brings to, to a, a piece of meat.
• 27:10
  And of course, you can imagine also that we could have local chocolate, local
• 27:16
  coffee using the same types of methods.
• 27:18
  So being part of that is.
• 27:20
  Super, super exciting and I hope I live to see it because I think that'll be so cool.
• 27:26
  'cause right now a chef, every chef gets a very similar pork chop.
• 27:30
  It's really just the technique that they use to prepare it
• 27:33
  that differentiates them.
• 27:35
  Can you imagine that you have your own pork chop?
• 27:37
  I mean, that's pretty cool.
• 27:39
  and then, you know, and as I said, there's just so many opportunities to be part of.
• 27:45
  Of businesses that will just help Canada to be more sovereign, more resilient
• 27:50
  maybe doing much less, you know, sort of flashy stuff than, than I just described.
• 27:55
  But there really is a generational opportunity to
• 27:58
  create a different, much more.
• 28:02
  I don't know, grown up version of Canada, it's the right time to and, and we've got
• 28:07
  the right resources to really change the country and, and help it to, to grow up
• 28:14
  and kind of stand on its own two feet.
• 28:16
  It's exciting.
• 28:17
  I, I concur fully.
• 28:18
  I, I really feel that we are in such a unique leadership opportunity that some
• 28:23
  of the dreams, whether sci-fi or just in terms of a better society that you and
• 28:29
  I growing up, you know, our culture has had, we're, we're at a moment where we
• 28:33
  could actually see them being implemented.
• 28:35
  But to your point, we need young people as our partners I always love
• 28:40
  chatting with you and listening to you 'cause you always help my vocabulary
• 28:44
  and in this case, alright, once we're done, I'm gonna go look up precision
• 28:48
  fermentation as again, a concept that has just completely blown my mind.
• 28:54
  Is there any final thoughts, any kinda issues that you think, we as a society,
• 29:00
  we as keeners within the food ag sector should be keeping an eye on 'cause.
• 29:06
  Again, that, that's what I love about picking your brain is, is you, you
• 29:10
  are at this unique intersection where you're seeing so many of the layers
• 29:14
  of in, of innovation and change happening in the system that just
• 29:18
  some of the breadcrumbs blow my mind.
• 29:20
  For the future consideration, what are, what are some things
• 29:23
  we should be keeping our eyes on?
• 29:25
  Well, first off, thank you so much.
• 29:27
  You've made my day.
• 29:28
  I feel you know, very very, very seen and appreciated.
• 29:31
  But I think.
• 29:33
  we have to do is.
• 29:36
  all have to commit getting in front of topics.
• 29:41
  So precision fermentation you just mentioned, that is
• 29:44
  something you're gonna look up.
• 29:45
  Thank you.
• 29:46
  We need to get in front of science messaging that could.
• 29:54
  scary or could be something that other groups do not want to succeed because
• 30:02
  it would threaten something that they already do, you know, economically.
• 30:06
  We've seen Butter Gate, we saw, you know, the whole GMO debate.
• 30:12
  There's this whole thing about seed oils right now, and unfortunately when you
• 30:17
  start to get Messaging going out there In this day and age, it was always hard,
• 30:22
  but it's even more difficult for people to really get to the, the, the real
• 30:27
  information, the actual scientific you know documented information that helps 'em
• 30:33
  to make the right choices for themselves.
• 30:36
  That's really going to be super important for all to keep
• 30:40
  an open mind, ask questions.
• 30:42
  And for us, hopefully to help train these large
• 30:45
  language
• 30:46
  model you know, like Gemini Chat, GBT, et cetera, to.
• 30:52
  Sort through the info in a way that does deliver the actual verified
• 30:58
  truth as opposed to opinion.
• 31:01
  And and, and that's, that's gonna be
• 31:03
  a huge
• 31:04
  be.
• 31:05
  for us going forward because it it also been, and it just kind
• 31:10
  continues to rear its ugly head.
• 31:12
  So, so somehow getting in front of the truth and making sure people feel.
• 31:18
  Like they're making choices that are, you know, healthy for
• 31:21
  themselves and, and knowing why they're making the right choice.
• 31:25
  That's super important.
• 31:26
  Thank you Dana.
• 31:27
  Brilliant as always, and I suspect we'll have the privilege of speaking
• 31:31
  with you again in the future.
• 31:33
  Anytime, Jesse, your questions are great and we always, I think we could
• 31:36
  talk for hours, so thank you so much.
• 31:38
  I appreciate this.
• 31:40
  That was Dana McCauley.
• 31:43
  What makes this conversation important isn't just Dana's career trajectory.
• 31:47
  It's what her trajectory reveals about Canada's AgriFood.
• 31:51
  Future innovation doesn't emerge from isolated brilliance.
• 31:56
  It requires connective tissue.
• 31:58
  It requires mentorship.
• 31:59
  It requires people who understand both how food is made and how businesses survive.
• 32:05
  Dana represents a generation of leaders who bridge worlds culinary and corporate,
• 32:11
  entrepreneurial and institutional, and that bridge building may be one of our
• 32:16
  most underappreciated national strengths.
• 32:20
  If Canada's going to compete globally in food, we'll need
• 32:24
  more than just good ideas.
• 32:26
  We'll need systems that help those ideas mature, scale, and endure.
• 32:32
  Leaders who circulate knowledge rather than centralize it, and
• 32:37
  networks that lower the cost of learning at the future herd.
• 32:41
  We believe these conversations are part of that infrastructure.
• 32:45
  So if this episode sparks something for you, whether you're a founder, a
• 32:49
  processor, a researcher, a policymaker, or like me, just a farmer doing their
• 32:54
  chores, well please share this episode.
• 32:57
  Because ecosystems grow when insight moves.
• 33:01
  The future of food in Canada won't be built by accident.
• 33:05
  It will be built by people willing to share what they know
• 33:09
  and willing to build together.
• 33:12
  I'm Jesse Hirsh.
• 33:13
  We'll see you next time in the Future.
• 33:16
  Heard.