2021 Leadership Summit
November 26 & 27, Quality Hotel, Gander
VIDEOS NOW AVAILABLE
Speakers:
Peter Chapman
Retail Marketer, Author, Speaker & Consultant
Peter Chapman not only understands the food industry, he has a passion for seeing others succeed in this business, sharing his in-depth knowledge of the retail landscape and consumers with food producers and food processors who want to grow their sales.
His valuable insights will help you navigate the marketplace more effectively and get your items in to the shopping cart of the consumer more often.
Peter’s extensive experience includes product development, building relationships throughout the supply chain and retail merchandising. Starting at the store level, he learned the importance of listening to the consumer and the challenges of implementing strategies at retail. He went on to Canada’s largest food retailer, Loblaws, for nearly twenty years, expanding his knowledge working in various departments, including merchandising, marketing, advertising and real estate.
In 2007, Peter started GPS Business Solutions, a company that has provided customized services to producers, processors and retailers across Canada and in the U.S. who want to increase their sales. Peter works directly with producers and processors to help them understand their customers, the retailers. Peter has helped retailers improve their merchandising processes and the offering to the consumer in store.
Look for Peter’s book a la cart, a supplier’s guide to retailers’ priorities. The book was written for suppliers, to help them better understand where their customers are focusing their efforts. There is a chapter devoted to each of the retailer’s priorities and suggestions for how suppliers can develop products and programs to support these initiatives.
Cedric MacLeod
Cedric MacLeod operates Local Valley Beef, a 105-acre beef farm which provides local, sustainable beef in New Brunswick, as well as his agronomy business, MacLeod Agronomics.
Although he wasn’t raised on a traditional farm, Cedric loved animals from an early age and opted to attend Nova Scotia Agricultural College to take pre-veterinary medicine after graduating from high school. However, his first-year introductory agriculture course set him on a completely different path. After attending a lecture on soil erosion, Cedric realized agronomy was where he needed to be. He set his sights on soil conservation and soil health.
Cedric went on to pursue a Master’s degree in Soil Science from the University of Manitoba, graduating in 2002. After a three-and-a-half-year stint in Ottawa with the Canadian Pork Council, Cedric returned home to New Brunswick, where he established both his farming operation, Local Valley Beef, and his agri-environmental consulting business, MacLeod Agronomics.
As a farmer, agrologist and consultant, Cedric has a unique ability to connect with and engage fellow farmers, bringing enhanced insight and demonstrable relevance to the farming community – showing farmers how they can overcome the vast challenges presented by an ever-changing and increasingly complex sector.
Caitlin Congdon
Caitlin is Field Crops Specialist with Perennia. In this role she supports the growth and development of the field crop industry by being a resource for producers on all aspects of field crop production, including small grains, corn, and soybeans. She has been with Perennia since 2016, first as a Research Associate and then as Acting Vegetable Specialist.
Caitlin has a Bachelor of Science in Agriculture from the former Nova Scotia Agricultural College, where she majored in Plant Science and minored in Pest Management. Her passion for field crops began when she worked as a student research associate for the Nova Scotia Crop Development Institute and led an undergraduate honours project on the fungicidal control of Fusarium Head Blight in cereals.
During her time as a research associate at Perennia, Caitlin has participated in numerous field crops trials, including the Maritime Corn Variety Testing and field-scale work on soybeans, corn, and winter wheat with the Atlantic Grains Council. Her agriculture background comes from a long family history of farming, supported by her work experience on both crop and livestock farms. She has hands-on experience in all stages of cropping, from planting cereals to chopping corn silage, as well as with dairy cattle and hogs.
Young Farmers' Panel
Crystal Anderson-Baggs
Crystal Anderson-Baggs is the Market Development Officer with the Department of Fisheries and Land Resources. She is a graduate of MUN's Bachelor of Commerce (Co-op) program from Memorial University with a concentration in Marketing and a minor in English in 2006 and recently completed her MBA Studies with the University of Leicester in 2018. Raised in rural Newfoundland, she is passionate about rural economic development especially within the agricultural industry as an industry. Her passion for all things marketing, especially grassroots and direct marketing, has enabled her to bring forth initiatives during her career that have grown and develop many additional industries and markets.