If Canada is serious about competing globally in agri-food, commercialization can’t be an afterthought.

In this episode of The Future Herd, Jesse Hirsh sits down with Dana McCauley — chef-turned-strategist, former food manufacturing executive, and one of Canada’s most influential food innovation leaders. Dana’s career spans fine dining, food media, corporate leadership, and national ecosystem development. Few people understand as clearly how ideas move from kitchens to factories to global markets.

Together, they explore:

• Why food innovation is as much about culture as it is about technology

• The hard realities of commercialization in Canada

• What scaling a food business really demands

• Why mentorship and knowledge-sharing are critical infrastructure

• How Canada can build a more coordinated, competitive agri-food sector

This is a conversation about systems — and the people who quietly build them.

If you work in food, agriculture, manufacturing, research, or policy, this episode offers a grounded look at what it actually takes to turn ambition into durable industry.

About The Future Herd:

The Future Herd explores leadership, coordination, and foresight in Canadian agri-food. We speak with the builders shaping the next generation of food and farming.

Subscribe for more conversations at the intersection of innovation, agriculture, and authority.

Hi, I'm Jesse Hirsh and welcome to the Future Herd.

If Canada is serious about becoming a global AgriFood powerhouse, it will be

because of leaders like Dana McCauley.

Dana is one of the most experienced and generous innovation leaders

in this country's food sector.

Trained as a chef, shaped by food media, battle tested inside

manufacturing, and now operating at the national level of commercialization

and ecosystem development.

She has seen the food system from plate to plant to policy.

But what makes her exceptional isn't simply that breadth.

It's her catalytic energy.

Dana has a rare ability to move knowledge across boundaries.

Translating between entrepreneurs and executives, researchers and

manufacturers, visionaries and operators, she doesn't hoard insight.

She distributes it generously.

And in a sector as fragmented as AgriFood, that habit of sharing may be

more powerful than any single innovation.

In this conversation, we explore her journey from kitchens to

corporate leadership, to national food innovation strategy.

We unpack what commercialization really demands why culture inside organizations

matters as much as technology and what Canada must get, right?

If we want our food companies, not just to start but to scale.

If you care about the future, competitiveness, resilience, and

intelligence of Canada's food system, you'll wanna listen closely.

How did you get to where you are now?

Professionally in terms of your focus and your expertise.

'cause I think that sets up our focus on the future.

So my, my personal professional.

Story is that can be summed up by saying I've just gotten

further away from people's mouths.

I started out with chefs training and worked in fine dining and

decided that was really hard.

And fortunately I had a university background that set me up to work

in magazines and that kind of thing.

So I went from.

Being like right there where I could see the people eating

the food I had touched to.

Then being a step further away writing the recipes that people would make at home.

Then I left doing that full-time and become a freelancer.

Started writing things like, you know, a newsletter called Top Line Trends.

And that got me inbound requests from businesses.

To be perfectly honest, I didn't realize I was well suited

to work in the food sector.

Other than, as, you know, a service provider of either words or, or food And

businesses came to me and said, Hey, this is really cool what you're talking about.

You could help our business.

And I was like, can I?

So that led to a number of years where I helped businesses to develop

recipe campaigns and new products, and I ended up with a TE's kitchen

and staff and all that kind of stuff.

Eventually.

Sold that to one of my employees.

Then I went to work for a food manufacturer who had

been my, one of my clients.

They wanted to have a, a complete sort of cultural change in

their, their organization and thought I could help with that.

And that, you know, led to about.

years of working as an executive in frozen food companies.

And then when that all sort of came to its sort of natural end I was approached

by the city of Toronto to be on the board of something called Food Starter.

And I said, well, who's gonna run the place?

Who would be, you know, who, who am I going to be managing and

making sure that they don't take risks and they didn't have anybody.

So I said, well.

I could help you for a year.

I could help get it up and running.

This is kind of a hard thing and you'll have a hard time

finding somebody who can do it.

And they thought that was a good idea.

And two and a half years later, still there.

And I was recruited to go to the University of Guelph to help their

agricultural researchers and food researchers to commercialize their

IP to understand, you know, the elasticity of what they had discovered.

And that was a super cool thing.

And little did I know I had this 360 degree experience from all of those

different jobs that set me up to come here to CFIN and a network that

unites all of those different folks.

I do wanna spend some time today talking about that network and the,

the kind of crucial role it already plays, and will play in terms of

the future of our ag food system.

But what I love about your story is it is a kind of unique leadership path

that not everyone has the opportunities you've had, to your point to get that

360 degree view, but also to acquire the knowledge that you've been able to

in terms of the perspectives and the roles and the different aspects of the

industry that you've been involved in.

But there's, there's one piece I want to tease out, which is why do you think

that trends are both still valuable today, but the kind of thing that.

Is unusually scarce.

Like you would think that trends are something that are accessible that

anyone can pay attention to, and yet it, it feels as if it is a kind of

unique characteristic, not just that you, yourself possess, but that remains

in demand, that that is something that people are still really desiring to know.

So I'd love it if you take a moment just to kind of reflect on the role

that it plays within the industry.

I think it's actually become harder to.

Track trends and to feel like you have a grasp on what's happening

external to your own little world.

When I first started out and I was always working in food trends to be be clear, so

this might not track against other type of of trends, but it was pretty simple.

All I really had to do was read all of the trade magazines.

Go to a few trade shows and hang out with my chef friends

and see what was exciting them.

And I could distill that quite simply into fairly easy to verify you

know, insights that would track to growth, because that was the pattern.

with the rise of social media and influencer culture and algorithms

that feed people more of what they've already been looking for it's way,

way harder to see where something's going to bubble up and what it

might, you know, might do as far as.

the food business goes like the same TikTok influencer who, you know, uses

cucumbers today and causes a sellout at the farmer's market is, could put out a

video tomorrow that doesn't hit right.

So it's a very different pattern and I think that's one of the

reasons people continue to ask.

For guidance is because what I, you know, figured out fairly early

on was quite easy to duplicate once you knew what I was doing.

Now it's, you know, you have to dig into a lot more data and you have to

really, it's hard to do in on your own individually because the algorithm

almost prevents you from doing it.

You have to kind of work in a team and see what other people are also seeing and,

and take a more of a heat map approach.

Well, and I think indirectly that partly speaks to the value of the Canadian Food

Innovation Network in that it is no longer possible to be that sole actor, that

E, even the heroic entrepreneur still.

Needs a, a community of, of fellows, a community of people engaged with the same

energy, engaged with the same momentum.

So I'd, I'd love for you to kind of connect that both the need to kind

of pay attention to changing market conditions, to identify opportunities

and the need to do so in a network.

Your journey almost seems self-evident in reverse.

But how has it been for you to foster this kind of genuine collaboration to

encourage people to see the value in a network, but at the same time kind

of help build it from the ground up?

Yeah, I have to say

Yeah, I

That.

it's been surprising and gratifying.

And in some ways, just, yeah, a real amazing learning experience because it's

one thing to put stuff out there, and you and I both have, have experience, you

know, being in the broadcast world, TV and radio, and, and we know that, you know,

having an opinion and a point of view can be a wonderful way to, start conversations

and, and to create some inbound.

But when you're creating something like Yodel, which is CFIN's you

know, virtual online portal.

You can't just, it can't be one sided.

Right?

It's, it's not a newspaper.

It, it, it's designed for, for interaction.

And it's in that interaction where the really interesting stuff pops up and

where you see these interprovincial opportunities and where you discover these

unlikely intersections, but that only happens if, if others will participate.

And that was the big risk with creating a, a virtual element to our network was that.

People would either one, not like it, two come and just, you know,

loiter and, and, and take but amazingly people in the food sector

who have every you know, justifiable right to tend towards, you know.

their trade secrets and keeping their information to themselves

for competitive reasons.

They aren't.

They, they're really out there helping each other.

And it's not just people who are in non-competitive you know,

like a baker talking to, you know, somebody who makes soup.

It's actually soup.

People talking to soup people sometimes, and that's really awesome to see.

It kind of renews your faith in, in humanity, to be perfectly honest.

Well, and it's, it's the depth and substance of yodel that, that

I found really quite remarkable.

And on, on the one hand, I, I see this as an avid learner that, that part

of my interest in the ag food sector is to learn as much of it as I can.

But to your point, some of the industry intelligence, some of the

market intelligence that's shared.

Just amongst people trying to source partners or, or try to find a packaging.

It, it speaks to me that we're seeing a glimpse of the future of

the sector that in Yoda we're getting a glimpse of the combination of

collaboration, transparency, and markets.

I, I'd love for you to kind of e extrapolate in, in the kind of blue sky

sense where you think that could go.

That as, as yodel continues to grow, as more people kind of recognize

the inherent value that it offers.

You know, this, this gets to our point about the future that I think, you

know, that William Gibson line and the future's already here, it's just

not, you know, evenly distributed.

You are experiencing part of that future.

So I'd love for you to share with, with our listeners, you know,

where, where you think it's headed.

Well, it's interesting.

I, I love William Gibson by the way, and another day I'll tell you

a story about how I embarrassed myself in front of him one time.

But another author I, I love is Ian McEwen and.

He and machines like me.

There was a great line, which I probably won't get perfect, but there

was a line about, you know how our shiny new toys and innovations the

next day, you know, seem ordinary.

And, and that's of course always true of, of innovation.

You know, the day you got electricity back in the day was probably transformative.

And two weeks later you were probably complaining that the

light wasn't in the right.

Part of the room.

But and, and I have to caution myself from doing that when I think about yodel,

because we have accomplished a lot.

We said we would have 1500 people on yodel by you know.

2025 and as of September, 2025, we probably had about 7,000.

And today, now in December, 2025, we have 8,000 and we predict that we'll

have 20,000 users in the next five years.

So it's you know, far exceeded what we expected to be, and yet to me it seems

very ordinary and quite frustrating that we aren't already at 20,000.

What's cool about what I'm seeing happening here is that a lot of

the things like I said, like people hoarding their trade secrets, et

cetera, that we, you know, had as assumptions are, are not true.

And we are seeing that this very fragmented sector.

Is very willing to, to work together and eager to, to help one another.

And I think if we go from right now, yodel is a lot of discussions and there's some

tools, there's a funding finder, there's a resource finder, which is, is is evolving

and becoming better by the day, but.

There's going to be this amazing opportunity to use a virtual space,

I think, to, to create pathways where anybody who is at any point in

an innovation cycle to come in and, you know, kind of like Harry Potter,

sorting hat, you know, just type in what they're, they're trying to do.

I think we can build the structures that can scan through all of the projects

that we've done as CFI and probably case studies from universities, et cetera,

and create pathways that can just help somebody in the moment to see what every

other person who has been recorded doing the same the same type of, of journey

what they did and direct them to all kinds of different resources and help them to.

Get things that they would otherwise take months and months and months to

find and have to have deep relationships to get to the right people, to

just have that at their fingertips.

And when that happens, it.

Innovation's gonna be accessible to so many more people, it's just gonna

really, you know, instead of failing forward to the degree that people who

came before them had to fail forward, they're, you know, they're going to

succeed much, much more frequently.

So I'm pretty excited about how we might be able to accelerate the pace

of, of innovation in the future.

Well, and, and I think that also evokes a powerful point about collaboration.

That collaboration is this buzzword.

You hear a lot in the sector, but you, you just evoked the idea

that not only do we not have.

To repeat the mistakes that others have made, it's almost as if we could

imagine a commercial equivalent to the idea of standing on the shoulders

of giants that we don't have to keep asking companies to go through the same

hurdles, but create a network, create an infrastructure that allows them

to benefit from each other's success.

How, how do you imagine that scaling up?

How do you imagine that?

You know, to your point, not just in terms of yodels growth, but

the sector's growth as a whole.

Well, I think human nature might be the biggest hurdle we'll have because

of course we all love to feel like we, you know, as Frank Sinatra,

it's a, you know, I did it my way.

And there's a, a certain bit of arrogance that I think many

entrepreneurs need to succeed.

So some of it will depend on, on people's willingness.

To learn from others and, and to, you know, be creative

from a, a base, a solid base.

it's like most movements, most new things.

There's a few early adopters and they start talking about it and then

a couple of other people, and those are the most important ones, come in.

Validate that what those folks said is true, and, and then

it becomes ubiquitous, right?

it doesn't happen overnight.

And, and that's why I, I say quite frequently in my conversations,

particularly with government partners, that we need this culture

change in the Canadian food sector because a lot of people don't realize

that most of the food companies in Canada are small, like 91% of the.

In Canada who are putting the food that you, you know, buy at the

grocery store and at restaurants you know, out there for you.

Have fewer than a hundred employees, and most of them have you know,

fewer than than 50 employees.

So these are not big companies.

So if we have this culture change, if we get, you know, 25% of them

adopting, you know, new ways to be.

And new ways to be innovative.

And then we can grow that to 30, 40, 50.

We can really have an outsized effect.

'cause we're not talking about, you know, these massive, big companies

that because of documentaries and because of books, you know, like

Food Inc and et cetera, et cetera.

I think Canadians.

Don't necessarily realize that Canada's food business isn't really

dominated by the multinationals and, and these monolithic companies

that, that we maybe think they are.

So when we remember that the people who are running these.

These great businesses putting these fantastic products onto the

shelves are actually our neighbors.

It, it does is the empathy that we as consumers get, I

think is, is, is different.

And I, and I think then we understand what the challenges are in a different way.

'cause it's not getting into the boardrooms of publicly traded

companies and getting them to buy in.

It's getting really busy.

Very passionate, hardworking folks to just slow down for a second, say, oh, yeah.

I, I, I could work a little bit smarter than I'm working today.

Well, kind of evokes the concept of the chef and the chef as leader, because on

the one hand, you know, chefs are leaders.

Within our communities, and to your point, they are.

Often small businesses that are hardworking, that are constantly grinding,

but there is an ethic of sharing, correct me if I'm wrong, wi within that identity.

And when you talk about cultural change, what I was also hearing

is a new kind of leadership.

and a new kind of leadership that focuses on sharing, that focuses on empowerment,

that to your point, recognizes that Canada's food system is kind of

unique in terms of our small players.

So I, I would love again, this may be something you take for granted,

but I would love for you to kind of.

Unpack your model of leadership and, and the way in which, to your

point, it's not about trade secrets.

It it, it's not about, you know the kind of ego driven, I did it my way.

It's very much about how do we learn from each other so that we can adapt to a

very tumultuous and volatile marketplace.

I think you picked up on something.

You're right.

I probably hadn't thought about very consciously before, but I think it might

actually be you know, maybe one of the elements of of my ability to do some of

the things I've done, the fact that I did start in a, a chef environment and not a

food manufacturing environment, because you very rightly point out that for

chefs, it is all about sharing, it's about community, it's relationships with the

farmer, relationships with your customer.

But you know, my husband owned a restaurant.

Yorkville, you know, one of the fanciest neighborhoods in Canada,

you know, with very big name chefs.

And they would routinely, if somebody, you know, at eight o'clock on a Friday

night had run out of lamb, you'd have a dishwasher running from one

restaurant to another, taking land.

it was not unusual, right?

For, for that kind of thing to happen because they recognized that

in a neighborhood like Yorkville.

Having lots of good restaurants means that you have lots of

customers for everybody, right?

And they work together.

But in food manufacturing, that is quite different.

I worked at a one food manufacturing company that still

exists, so I won't name them.

And I was so surprised.

I was vice president of Marketing and Innovation and we had several tractor

trailer loads full of old equipment.

And I was like, you know, looking at our, our financials in one of our

board meetings, and I was like our senior management meetings rather.

And I was like, well, why are we spending this many thousands of dollars?

Let's just sell that equipment.

And the CEO was like, no, we can't sell that equipment.

It's then people can make, well, we're making exactly the same way.

And I'm like, okay, well fine.

But you know, that's, that's a cost we don't need.

So very different approaches.

And I do think that that, yeah, the, the, the hospitality part of the food

business and probably the farming part of the food business are very much rooted in

community and everybody working together and sharing and, and and that, that

those are good lessons for, for folks down into the food manufacturing space.

To learn from because it, you know, we keep quoting different books and songs

and stuff and, and, and cliches today, but it, it literally does take a village.

In Canada, we're, we're such a geographically big country that

really there it's, you know.

If we think about shortening supply chains and making a resilient local economies

to make a resilient national economy, there is room for there to be, you know

an Ontario company that is fantastic at the same thing that a Vancouver company

or a BC company is fantastic at as well.

And they, they can work together to, you know, obviously within reasonable limits.

Well, and, and you also, I think indirectly just connected some dots

for me there in terms of young people and leadership because the other

thing that both farming and the food service industry kind of have in

common is it's the easiest way that young people get into the industry.

Number

whether it's serving.

is, is restaurants.

Yeah.

Exactly.

And, and what's fascinating about your story is it, it gives this vision of

the future in which we have not just upward mobility, but cross-sectoral

mobility because we, we, I think one thing you and I both hold quite

deeply is the belief that we need more young people in positions of power.

We need more young people feeling as if they have a stake in this system.

Could you speculate or imagine on how we make those links so that

those young people who are serving tables can imagine a future anywhere

within the sector as long as they're willing to learn and adapt.

I think that, you know, when I look at people under 30 right now, which I

guess would be Gen Zs and, and Alphas the few that I have frequent contact

with seem to, have a very different mindset than I had at that age.

You know, at at 29 had my own business.

I was married to someone who had their own business.

We had every, you know, we couldn't afford it then, but we were, knew

we were gonna be able to buy a house and we were gonna, you know, have

nice things and, and all that stuff.

Young people right now.

Feel like they have a lot of limitations.

I don't hear them talking about being able to, to own homes and do a lot of the

aspirational things that, that felt like almost a you know, like a, a, a right,

that I, I assumed that I, I, if I worked hard, that I would just get those things.

So I think we have to start with helping them to feel.

to hope and dream and, and, you know, and, and, and to aspire.

I think that's a, a societal issue right now.

but then when it comes to the food sector, so many of people in those

cohorts are you know, there's so well educated and they've been exposed to so

much world information and they, they've.

up watching people like Greta Thornberg you know, kind of stand in her power

and own an issue and be effective.

So they're quite purpose driven and that's what's so wonderful about

the food business is you can make a living and accomplish a lot of

those, those historical milestones.

But you also can do a lot of really good work.

Really you know, good stuff for your community while having

a, a really great business.

And so many of the skills that people are coming out of college and university

with are transferable to the food sector.

But young people don't know that.

They don't see it.

We aren't telling them that, Hey, your data science degree or your math.

Degree is useful because, we're all, creating and using a lot of data machine

learning is one of the most powerful tools for helping food companies to become more.

Productive and it's amazing.

And, and that's the paradox.

I think that on the one hand we see the potential in young people, but on the

other hand, they may not have the vision that our age and wisdom affords us.

I think on the one hand that is the leadership role we can play as aging

or almost aging professionals that we can help them see that vision.

But let me ask you this, what excites you about the future that you could

share or frame to your point as an invitation for young people to

get more involved in this sector?

To really see that there are no limits outside of their imagination.

I would say, for the young people who have been reared on sci-fi and

video games that include, sort of magical realism and future, the

William Gibson readers there that.

It's gonna like, we're in the golden age of food science right now.

I say that all the time and it is really exciting.

If you think about what is possible.

now using cellular agriculture and cultivated, you know, types of types of

models to make foods using, well, even air, you know, if you, if you think

about what we can do with precision fermentation and all of these other

technologies, it is feasible that in a couple of decades, maybe three, that.

If you were a chef, you could say to a group of food scientists, you could

say, I'd like you to create a pork chop for me that has the flavor of of

Dutch tulip fed pork and the fatty.

Consciousness of iberico pork, and that literally will be possible.

We have companies already here in Canada like liven who are working on

the collagen piece of that pork chop.

We have companies like Genuine Taste who are working on the fat.

We have companies like Ara who are working on, you know, the, what the,

the, know, the, the, the duplicating, the juiciness and, and and the color

that you know, that, that the animal's blood brings to, to a, a piece of meat.

And of course, you can imagine also that we could have local chocolate, local

coffee using the same types of methods.

So being part of that is.

Super, super exciting and I hope I live to see it because I think that'll be so cool.

'cause right now a chef, every chef gets a very similar pork chop.

It's really just the technique that they use to prepare it

that differentiates them.

Can you imagine that you have your own pork chop?

I mean, that's pretty cool.

and then, you know, and as I said, there's just so many opportunities to be part of.

Of businesses that will just help Canada to be more sovereign, more resilient

maybe doing much less, you know, sort of flashy stuff than, than I just described.

But there really is a generational opportunity to

create a different, much more.

I don't know, grown up version of Canada, it's the right time to and, and we've got

the right resources to really change the country and, and help it to, to grow up

and kind of stand on its own two feet.

It's exciting.

I, I concur fully.

I, I really feel that we are in such a unique leadership opportunity that some

of the dreams, whether sci-fi or just in terms of a better society that you and

I growing up, you know, our culture has had, we're, we're at a moment where we

could actually see them being implemented.

But to your point, we need young people as our partners I always love

chatting with you and listening to you 'cause you always help my vocabulary

and in this case, alright, once we're done, I'm gonna go look up precision

fermentation as again, a concept that has just completely blown my mind.

Is there any final thoughts, any kinda issues that you think, we as a society,

we as keeners within the food ag sector should be keeping an eye on 'cause.

Again, that, that's what I love about picking your brain is, is you, you

are at this unique intersection where you're seeing so many of the layers

of in, of innovation and change happening in the system that just

some of the breadcrumbs blow my mind.

For the future consideration, what are, what are some things

we should be keeping our eyes on?

Well, first off, thank you so much.

You've made my day.

I feel you know, very very, very seen and appreciated.

But I think.

we have to do is.

all have to commit getting in front of topics.

So precision fermentation you just mentioned, that is

something you're gonna look up.

Thank you.

We need to get in front of science messaging that could.

scary or could be something that other groups do not want to succeed because

it would threaten something that they already do, you know, economically.

We've seen Butter Gate, we saw, you know, the whole GMO debate.

There's this whole thing about seed oils right now, and unfortunately when you

start to get Messaging going out there In this day and age, it was always hard,

but it's even more difficult for people to really get to the, the, the real

information, the actual scientific you know documented information that helps 'em

to make the right choices for themselves.

That's really going to be super important for all to keep

an open mind, ask questions.

And for us, hopefully to help train these large

language

model you know, like Gemini Chat, GBT, et cetera, to.

Sort through the info in a way that does deliver the actual verified

truth as opposed to opinion.

And and, and that's, that's gonna be

a huge

be.

for us going forward because it it also been, and it just kind

continues to rear its ugly head.

So, so somehow getting in front of the truth and making sure people feel.

Like they're making choices that are, you know, healthy for

themselves and, and knowing why they're making the right choice.

That's super important.

Thank you Dana.

Brilliant as always, and I suspect we'll have the privilege of speaking

with you again in the future.

Anytime, Jesse, your questions are great and we always, I think we could

talk for hours, so thank you so much.

I appreciate this.

That was Dana McCauley.

What makes this conversation important isn't just Dana's career trajectory.

It's what her trajectory reveals about Canada's AgriFood.

Future innovation doesn't emerge from isolated brilliance.

It requires connective tissue.

It requires mentorship.

It requires people who understand both how food is made and how businesses survive.

Dana represents a generation of leaders who bridge worlds culinary and corporate,

entrepreneurial and institutional, and that bridge building may be one of our

most underappreciated national strengths.

If Canada's going to compete globally in food, we'll need

more than just good ideas.

We'll need systems that help those ideas mature, scale, and endure.

Leaders who circulate knowledge rather than centralize it, and

networks that lower the cost of learning at the future herd.

We believe these conversations are part of that infrastructure.

So if this episode sparks something for you, whether you're a founder, a

processor, a researcher, a policymaker, or like me, just a farmer doing their

chores, well please share this episode.

Because ecosystems grow when insight moves.

The future of food in Canada won't be built by accident.

It will be built by people willing to share what they know

and willing to build together.

I'm Jesse Hirsh.

We'll see you next time in the Future.

Heard.