I work with food and beverage businesses to solve complex commercial and operational challenges with a practical, operator-led approach. My background spans executive leadership, corporate strategy, banking, and entrepreneurship, giving me a unique perspective on how to build, scale, and strengthen businesses in competitive markets. As President of a rapidly growing commercial bakery, I helped scale operations across North America, supporting significant revenue growth, expanding retail partnerships, and leading a team of more than 100 employees. Through Parkway Food Group, I now advise manufacturers, distributors, and emerging brands on growth strategy, sales execution, retailer relationships, procurement optimization, operational improvement, and market expansion. I understand the realities business owners face because I have lived them: margin pressure, customer concentration, operational bottlenecks, staffing challenges, and the constant need to grow while managing risk. My focus is not theoretical consulting. It is building practical solutions that drive measurable outcomes. Whether supporting a founder navigating growth, a manufacturer entering new channels, or an ownership group evaluating acquisitions and strategy, I bring a hands-on approach rooted in accountability, execution, and long-term partnership. I believe the best advisors combine strategy with the ability to get things done.

I'm a fractional leader and advisor helping CPG brands scale smarter by building foundational strategy, simplicity & connections in the natural products space. I help brands by simplifying planning complexity, strengthening partnerships, and connecting operations, finance, and sales into a unified, growth-ready strategy. Supporting brands in fractional, project-based, or advisory roles, improving supply chain, operations and procurement processes from strategy to tactical execution, helping founders reduce complexity, protect margin, and scale confidently. As a Supply Chain, Operations & Procurement leader with 25+ years in CPG, I help growing food and beverage brands turn challenges into opportunities—guiding them from strategic planning to tactical execution. Leveraging my network of supplier relationships and deep knowledge of systems, I help brands improve efficiency, flexibility, and visibility while protecting margin and enabling sustainable growth.

We are retail educators and experts, teaching Canadian businesses how to build, grow, and scale in retail. As industry connectors, Kenny & Phil bring decades of experience as buyers, sales strategists, and marketers into delivering practical, actionable education grounded in real-world application.

At Label Launch Solutions, we specialize in driving revenue growth and enhancing brand presence through strategic sales and marketing solutions. Whether you seek Private Label or Branded sales growth, our expertise and dedication ensure your success in a competitive market.

I've spent 30 years in the protein procurement industry, most recently directing protein strategy for HelloFresh's US operations - managing $500M+ in annual spend across beef, poultry, pork, and seafood. Before that, I led purchasing and sourcing at D'Artagnan and spent over a decade in commodity procurement at AVA Pork. My career has been defined by building procurement functions that deliver measurable results: exceeding cost savings targets by 2x, maintaining zero service disruptions through COVID-19, ASF, and HPAI outbreaks, and developing proprietary models that generated $900K+ in COGS savings within six months. Today I run HighLine Consulting Group, where I help food companies with protein procurement strategy, market analysis, and go-to-market advisory. I'm also selectively exploring leadership opportunities where I can apply my expertise at scale.

I am a sub-Saharan Africa specialist with 20+ years of experience working with Africans across the continent. I have worked in grassroots NGOs, academia, government, the UN, think tanks, NGOs, and, now, the private sector. ATD works with companies to solve problems ranging from getting government approvals to improving your operations or linking you with the latest African tech.

I provide a comprehensive consulting approach for food businesses navigating the complexities of international trade and large-scale manufacturing. My expertise lies in aligning high-level Global Regulatory Strategy with ground-level Process Excellence, ensuring that food safety protocols are both scientifically sound and financially sustainable. With extensive experience in North American and international food laws - including SFCR, FSMA, FSANZ, and EU standards - I help organizations secure global market access through rigorous label validation, export documentation, and supplier risk management. My core services include: - Multijurisdictional Compliance: Navigating CFIA and FDA requirements, including Foreign Supplier Verification (FSVP) and Preventive Control Plans (PCP). - Finance & Risk Management: Balancing quality requirements with budgetary constraints and implementing cost-effective testing and supply chain verification strategies. - Training & Auditing: Delivering technical workforce training in GMPs, HACCP, and Food Defense, while leading successful GFSI-level audit executions (BRCGS, CanadaGAP, SQF, FSSC22000). By integrating technical food safety with operational oversight, I help clients build resilient systems that reduce risk and protect brand integrity in a competitive global marketplace.

Playing in the diabetic-friendly space of low glycemic foods, we consult for firms in need of support to bring their ideas to their retailers. We deal with complex commercializations to deliver low waste processes for our customers.

Laura Shepherd is a Marketing strategist & Leadership Coach with 30+ years of leadership experience building brands and leading teams across global organizations. She brings a unique blend of strategic insight and people development expertise, having led brand transformations and guided leaders through growth, change, and complexity. With a strong foundation in Consumer Packaged Goods, she brings a strategic approach to business growth. She helps companies—whether startups or established brands—gain clarity and alignment by developing tailored business strategies rooted in insights and analysis.

I help food businesses turn ideas into commercially successful products, drawing on over 25 years of experience leading R&D and culinary teams within major organizations and delivering projects for global brands. My experience spans Europe, Asia and North America across foodservice, retail, HMR and travel catering, giving me a broad and commercially grounded perspective on how food performs in different markets and channels. I design scalable, high-impact menu items and food programs for national restaurant chains and grocers, ensuring creativity translates seamlessly into operational reality. Through culinary-led innovation, strategic product development and hands-on execution, I guide clients from concept through to launch — aligning flavour, functionality and financial performance to deliver products that win in market, on shelf and in service.

I work with early-stage food and CPG brands that are preparing to grow, but want clarity before committing more money to production, packaging, or retail expansion. As the co-founder of Whipdd, a flavoured butter brand now sold in 200+ retail stores across Canada, I’ve spent the last few years working through the realities of scaling a CPG business - manufacturing constraints, distributor margins, retail pricing, promotions, and cash-flow trade-offs. Most founders come in with one specific thing that feels stuck: pricing that works in one channel but not another, unit economics that look fine on paper but fall apart at scale, or retailer conversations that keep circling without moving forward. I focus on short, hands-on advisory projects that tackle one of those bottlenecks at a time. The goal is to reach clear, usable decisions quickly — usually within about 30 days — so founders can move forward with confidence instead of second-guessing. Typical outcomes include clearer pricing across channels, stronger numbers behind buyer and broker conversations, and a better understanding of what actually needs fixing now versus what can wait.

Michael is uniquely qualified to assist in helping you connect the dots from your initial product concept to finding the right ingredients and the best fit for a co-manufacturer to place your product on-shelf. Being one of the first food scientists to work for Marks & Spencer (M&S) in the late 70s, he gained detailed insight into the world of Private Label since everything M&S bore the St. Michael brand. In the 80s, Michael was at the forefront of the Canadian Private Label explosion working directly with Dave Nichol at Loblaws, as an outside respondent, as the No Name and President's Choice brands were being developed and rolled out. Employing his experience from M&S along with other industry experience, Michael created a Private Label Division at UFL Foods, now Newly Weds Foods, that catered to the growing demand for Private Label goods. Recognizing that simply emulating a brand was not the path to success, he assisted companies to express their own "personalities" to develop their own renditions of what they wanted their offerings to be. This continued with many start up companies looking to create their own space with their own signature profiles that Michael and his companies could develop for them, at the same time, assisting them to find the right ingredients and co-manufacturers, where necessary. Retired since December 2024 but still keeping current in the industry and available to help you realize your ideal product offerings!