Food Industry Better Prepared For Second Lockdown

Nov 30, 2020

Many Canadians are going through a second lockdown.

Dr. Sylvain Charlebois, Food Professor at Dalhousie University, believes things will be different this time around.

"Conditions are very different compared to last March and April. On the one side, of course, you have a very different consumer. The consumers walking into a grocery store will know that they can actually go back a couple of days later or a week later. Back in March, there were a lot of unknowns related to the virus. How public health officials would manage the pandemic."

He notes more people are buying food online.

"In fact, we actually believe that 4.2 million Canadians are actually buying food online at least once a week right now. After the pandemic, almost half of Canadians are planning to buy food online at least once a week. That's a lot of people, a lot of traffic and you can see that the food industry is getting ready for that."

Dr. Charlebois talked about how restaurants are handling the second lockdown.

"Back in March, restaurants weren't necessarily ready to support retail collapse, they couldn't accommodate anybody in their dining. They did not pivot. Now they have pivoted and a lot of them can actually continue to operate, which is really good news. It will actually lessen the pressure retailers have to handle."

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Video: Evolution of Beef Cattle Farming

The Clear Conversations podcast took to the road for a special episode recorded in Nashville during CattleCon, bringing listeners straight into the heart of the cattle industry. Host Tracy Sellers welcomed rancher Steve Wooten of Beatty Canyon Ranch in Colorado for a wide-ranging discussion that blended family history and sustainability, particularly as it relates to the future of beef production.

Sustainability emerged as a central theme of the conversation, a word that Wooten acknowledges can mean very different things depending on who you ask. For him, sustainability starts with the soil. Healthy soil produces healthy grass, which supports efficient cattle capable of producing year after year with minimal external inputs. It’s an approach that equally considers vegetation, animal efficiency, and long-term profitability.

That philosophy aligned naturally with Wooten’s involvement in the U.S. Roundtable for Sustainable Beef, where he served as a representative for the Colorado Cattlemen’s Association. The roundtable brings together the entire beef supply chain—from producers to retailers—along with universities, NGOs, and allied industries. Its goal is not regulation, Wooten emphasized, but collaboration, shared learning, and continuous improvement.