In this flavorful new episode of The Food Professor Podcast—presented by Caddle—Michael LeBlanc and Dr. Sylvain Charlebois serve up an inspiring conversation with Rob Sengotta, chef and co-founder of Von Slick’s Finishing Touch, the award-winning Manitoba-based producer of gourmet compound butters.

Rob takes listeners behind the scenes of his chef-to-entrepreneur journey—from fine-dining kitchens in London and France to building a small-batch butter business on the prairies. He shares how curiosity and culinary discipline led to Von Slick’s signature push-tube packaging and eight imaginative flavours, including garlic confit, roasted red pepper, mushroom duxelle, and cowboy butter.

Listeners learn how Rob and partner Landon Craker turned a spark of an idea into a thriving Western Canadian brand by mastering distribution, leveraging farmers’ markets, and staying creative on social media. Rob reflects on his early appearance on Dragon’s Den, the lessons learned about timing and valuation, and the advantages of remaining proudly local. He also reveals new restaurant-format products, growing online sales nationwide, and why Canadians’ appetite for supporting homegrown brands continues to expand.

In the first half, Sylvain reports live from Medellín, Colombia, where he’s attending an international conference on rural food economies. He offers a fascinating window into Colombia’s agricultural transformation—how coffee and cocoa remain vital exports and how farmers are striving to move beyond decades of narcotics-driven instability.

Back in Canada, Michael and Sylvain unpack the latest headlines:

• CFIA factory inspections and the urgent need for transparency;
• Health Canada’s cloned-meat consultations, why silent science can backfire, and the parallels to GMO controversies;
• Parliamentary hearings on the grocery code of conduct and why supplier–retailer trust still drives price volatility;
• Bank of Canada’s rate decision, its implications for restaurants and food-service recovery; and
• There is a growing debate over adopting a U.S.-style SNAP food-assistance program in Canada.

This episode blends global perspective, policy insight, and entrepreneurial inspiration—proving again that from farm to fork, the Canadian food economy is as complex as it is delicious.

The Food Professor #podcast is presented by Caddle. 

About Us

Dr. Sylvain Charlebois is a Professor in food distribution and policy in the Faculties of Management and Agriculture at Dalhousie University in Halifax. He is also the Senior Director of the Agri-food Analytics Lab, also located at Dalhousie University. Before joining Dalhousie, he was affiliated with the University of Guelph’s Arrell Food Institute, which he co-founded. Known as “The Food Professor”, his current research interest lies in the broad area of food distribution, security and safety. Google Scholar ranks him as one of the world's most cited scholars in food supply chain management, food value chains and traceability.

He has authored five books on global food systems, his most recent one published in 2017 by Wiley-Blackwell entitled “Food Safety, Risk Intelligence and Benchmarking”. He has also published over 500 peer-reviewed journal articles in several academic publications. Furthermore, his research has been featured in several newspapers and media groups, including The Lancet, The Economist, the New York Times, the Boston Globe, the Wall Street Journal, Washington Post, BBC, NBC, ABC, Fox News, Foreign Affairs, the Globe & Mail, the National Post and the Toronto Star.

Dr. Charlebois sits on a few company boards, and supports many organizations as a special advisor, including some publicly traded companies. Charlebois is also a member of the Scientific Council of the Business Scientific Institute, based in Luxemburg. Dr. Charlebois is a member of the Global Food Traceability Centre’s Advisory Board based in Washington DC, and a member of the National Scientific Committee of the Canadian Food Inspection Agency (CFIA) in Ottawa.

Michael LeBlanc is the president and founder of M.E. LeBlanc & Company Inc, a senior retail advisor, keynote speaker and now, media entrepreneur.  He has been on the front lines of retail industry change for his entire career. 

Michael has delivered keynotes, hosted fire-side discussions and participated worldwide in thought leadership panels, most recently on the main stage in Toronto at Retail Council of Canada’s Retail Marketing conference with leaders from Walmart & Google.  He brings 25+ years of brand/retail/marketing & eCommerce leadership experience with Levi's, Black & Decker, Hudson's Bay, CanWest Media, Pandora Jewellery, The Shopping Channel and Retail Council of Canada to his advisory, speaking and media practice.

Michael produces and hosts a network of leading retail trade podcasts, including the award-winning No.1 independent retail industry podcast in America, Remarkable Retail with his partner, Dallas-based best-selling author Steve Dennis; Canada's top retail industry podcast The Voice of Retail and Canada's top food industry and one of the top Canadian-produced management independent podcasts in the country, The Food Professor with Dr. Sylvain Charlebois from Dalhousie University in Halifax.

Rethink Retail has recognized Michael as one of the top global retail experts for the fourth year in a row, Thinkers 360 has named him on of the Top 50 global thought leaders in retail, RTIH has named him a top 100 global though leader in retail technology and Coresight Research has named Michael a Retail AI Influencer.  If you are a BBQ fan, you can tune into Michael’s cooking show, Last Request BBQ, on YouTube, Instagram, X and yes, TikTok.

Michael is available for keynote presentations helping retailers, brands and retail industry insiders explaining the current state and future of the retail industry in North America and around the world.