The Healthy Menu

Welcome back to another episode of The Healthy Menu. Meet Sherie Nelson, Director of Wellness at Elior North America. Elior North America is a family of distinct hospitality companies with more than 50 years of industry experience, with a passion for food, service, and excellence.

Sherie believes food service is the gateway to teaching Americans how to eat for their health. As the Wellness Director at Elior North America, she has the remarkable opportunity to bring her strong belief that food influences health to a large audience – over 1 million customers daily.  With nearly 20 years of nutrition, wellness, and food service experience, she currently leads all nutrition and wellness programs and initiatives within all Elior segments, including healthcare, higher education, business dining, and K-12, and contributes to employee wellness programming. Sherie is a registered dietitian nutritionist and has an MBA and Master’s in Arts of Management from the College of St. Scholastica.

When not promoting wellness, Sherie is practicing it in her daily life. Cooking and eating well take the center of her plate next to the time she spends on a dirt trail, chasing her beautiful Siberian husky down dirt and snow-covered trails.

The Healthy Menu is sponsored by MenuSano and hosted by Sonia Couto, Founder of MenuSano. Listen more from The Healthy Menu on Spotify, Apple Music, and more.

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In this episode, Sonia Couto spoke with Rym Selmi, the Founder of Miiro. Miiro offers plant-based and low-sugar chocolates and baking goodies. They discuss the plant-based market, as well as Rym's story, and how Miiro got started. This episode was taken from a recorded live on September 2022. The Healthy Menu is sponsored by MenuSano, a nutrition analysis and recipe costing software. 

Welcome back to another episode of The Healthy Menu. Today, Sonia Couto is here to discuss the technology tools available to take control of your health. Check out all the tools that Sonia talks about below. This episode was taken from a recorded live on June 2022. The Healthy Menu is sponsored by MenuSano, a nutrition analysis and recipe costing software.

Nutritional fact-value information has been proven to drive changes in consumer behavior. It is vital for informing decision-making for purchases, and provides protection for both consumers and manufacturers. Nutrition labels are vital for consumers who are on a diet of any kind, or have a medical condition and/or allergy that prevents them from eating certain things.

As a result, nutrition labels and accurate nutrition label software has become increasingly important. Food manufacturers must ensure that all of the boxes are checked and every mandated component of the label must be present.

In this episode, MenuSano founder Sonia Couto spoke with Sean Beckingham, the President of Branding & Buzzing.
Branding and Buzzing is Canada’s leading food & beverage marketing agency, buzzing about consumer & foodservice brands.

Together they discussed food marketing and branding, food packaging essentials, and marketing tips for food businesses.

The Nutrition Labeling and Education Act in the U.S. and other similar laws in other countries was designed to help consumers make more informed choices about what they eat. Through the use of nutrition information on food packages along with other important information such as ingredients, nutrition facts, and nutrition data, consumers can get more information on the food they are eating and how healthy it is.

Nutrition labelling errors happen all too often in manufacturing facilities around the world. These mistakes lead to financial loss for manufacturers due to recalled products and legal issues such as lawsuits from consumer groups or individuals who were affected by nutrition label inaccuracies.

In this episode, MenuSano founder Sonia Couto spoke with Tamir Barzilai, the CEO and Co-Founder of Honeycomb.

The Honeycomb.ai app makes it easy for restaurants to display dietary information on their menu in a way that is totally automated. Together, these two Founders spoke about Honeycomb's story and the impact of nutrition and allergen technologies in the food and beverage industry.

In July 2016, a fifteen-year-old girl named Natasha Ednan-Laperouse suffered a fatal allergic reaction after eating an olive, artichoke, and tapenade baguette. The product contained sesame seeds, which Natasha was allergic to, and following the consumption of the food product, Natasha, unfortunately, passed away from anaphylaxis. This all ensued due to the food product not containing the appropriate allergen information, ultimately causing her death.

The incident prompted Natasha’s family to campaign for increased legislation around appropriately labelling food products to include all ingredients and potential allergens. This resulted in the introduction and implementation of Natasha’s Law.

What exactly is an added sugar?

Added sugars are syrups and sugars that are added to foods or beverages during preparation or processing. They are often found in foods low in other nutrients such as dairy and grain-based desserts, sweets, and sugar-sweetened beverages. In this Bitesize episode, we will be discussing Displaying Added Sugars on your Nutrition Facts Labels.

In the recent past, as awareness around health and nutrition has increased, more attention is being drawn to various dietary trends. New, popular dietary trends such as the Mediterranean diet, plant-based diet, veganism, and vegetarianism, to name a few, have dramatically grown in popularity. This has forced consumers to take a close look at their eating habits and the nutritional value of what they are consuming regularly.

Food labeling is one of the most essential components of any food-based industry. Beyond transparency, it allows people to determine, choose, and upkeep their dietary needs and health plans.

This episode looks at the benefit of labelling on your food products. 

In this episode of the Healthy Menu Podcast, we’ll be discussing creating a CFIA compliant nutrition fact label featuring Christine Billinger, Design & Marketing Manager.

Christine will talk about nutrition fact label exemptions, rules to remember when displaying labels, changes, and more.

A nutrition fact label is designed to reflect the most up-to-date recommendations from each country’s respective governing body regarding the nutrition facts of certain foods. The mandated contents of a label are routinely updated and make it easier and more accessible for consumers to understand the nutritional value of the food they are buying and make healthier and more informed choices about their diets.

It can be challenging to ensure that you as a food and beverage manufacturer are remaining compliant and keeping up with the latest guidelines.

Christine expanded on creating a CFIA-compliant label when we spoke earlier.

References:

We've seen an increasing number of changes when it comes to the foodservice industry. The biggest is how many businesses have pivoted to adapt to the behaviours of their guests as well as public health guidelines. This episode looks at some of these changes and how business owners can shift their outlook on traditional ways of running food businesses.

References:

Hello! Welcome to The Healthy Menu Podcast. I’m Karan and I’m your host.

Joined this episode by Thao Nguyen, who, in 2016 founded Bonbon Collections after wanting to be able to serve cakes and healthy sweets to her daughters. Because they have allergies, Thao was afraid of them feeling sidelined at school or at children's parties because of their allergies.

Bonbon Collections specializes in the manufacture of pastries, sweet treats and gourmet pleasures free from Top-10 allergens, no gluten, no artificial dyes or artificial ingredients. 100% of the products are natural and vegan.

In this conversation, Sonia spoke with Thao about the growth of Bonbon Collections, how it’s mission contributed towards the growth of the company, their experience on Dragon’s Den and much more.

This conversation was taken from an Instagram Live recorded on November 2020.

This Bitesize episode discusses Nutrition Analysis, how we can understand it and why it’s so important, especially for foodservice and hospitality businesses and restaurants. 

In this episode, we were joined by Chef Luciano Schipano, Executive Chef of Nova Ristorante and Founder of Culinarium, an event and kitchen space based in Toronto. He spoke with Sonia Couto, Founder of MenuSano, an Online Nutrition Analysis & Recipe Costing software.

Born in Canada and raised in Italy, Luciano Schipano has always been food’s number one fan. Instead of spending his childhood biking around his neighborhood and playing with his friends, he chose to master the art of cooking. Since childhood, he has been learning about the intricacies of flavors and the nutritional value of food.

Luciano and Sonia spoke about Culinarium, taking care of his guests' health with the food that he makes, and the benefits and features of MenuSano.

This conversation was taken from an Instagram Live recorded on August 2020.

Most places in the world are lucky enough to be in the reopening stage whilst  some others are still stuck in lockdown. Regardless of where your economy is, we wanted to talk a little bit about reopening foodservice and restaurant businesses and what that could actually look like.

Most of the content of this podcast has been taken from our new e-book, Operating in the New Era: A Post-COVID E-book for restaurants and food services.

Whilst foodservices and hospitality establishments prepare to reopen, there’s a lot to consider and adapt to thanks to the residual effect of COVID. In Canada alone, it is estimated that 1 in 10 restaurants have permanently closed as a direct result of the pandemic. Closing was hard, and now that businesses are re-opening, it is time to look forward.

In this episode, we were incredibly lucky to have the Jo-Ann McArthur, President of Nourish Marketing - Canada's only full-service marketing agency working exclusively with food, beverage and agricultural clients.

Jo-Ann has spent a career building brands with consumers and retailers at Molson, Procter and Gamble, Unilever and Cadillac Fairview. Jo-Ann is also the founding chair of the Sponsorship Marketing Council of Canada, a Past President of The Empire Club of Canada where she hosted leaders from around the globe, and serves as Past Chair of ABC Life Literacy Canada.

In this episode, we’ll be discussing marketing your restaurant or foodservice business during this time of lockdown. We'll provide some practical, actionable tips on how your foodservice business or restaurant can maintain momentum with an audience despite being a little quieter than usual.

Whilst many businesses are suffering at the hand of the lockdown, there are also many who have a platform in which they are fortunate enough to be able to continue engaging with their audience. 

References: 

The latest episode of our podcast features Sonia Couto, the Founder of MenuSano as she talks about how the restaurant industry has been affected by COVID-19, how foodservice businesses can be supported during this time and how the Nutrition Analysis software, MenuSano can assist foodservice businesses during this time.

This is part two of two.

The latest episode of our podcast features Sonia Couto, the Founder of MenuSano as she talks about how the restaurant industry has been affected by COVID-19, how foodservice businesses can be supported during this time and how the Nutrition Analysis software, MenuSano can assist foodservice businesses during this time.

This is part one of two. 

In this episode, Sonia Couto, Founder of MenuSano, will be talking with Cheryl Appleton, who, for over 20 years has been leading large multi-national companies with her procurement expertise and is also the Founder of Canadian Women In Food, which is a national association supporting female food entrepreneurs.

Since 2001, Cheryl has been a Certified Supply Chain Management Professional (CSCMP), and has served on executive boards such as The Women’s Foodservice Forum (WFF) in 2012 – 2014.

In 2016, she was named one of “10 Women Changing the Canadian Food Industry” by The Huffington Post as well as a panelist and speaker for several groups including the Women’s Leadership Network (WLN), Women Business Enterprises Canada (WBE), and Food Starter.

The impact that COVID-19 has had on the foodservice and hospitality industry has been unlike anything we've seen in recent memory but in an effort to try and combat the negative impact it has had on the foodservice and hospitality industry, we want to talk about how you can approach the COVID-19 when it comes to your foodservice or hospitality business. We'll be going through some resources that are accessible online and some actions you can take to help keep your existing audience engaged and your business front of mind. 

News excerpts from:

 CTV News Vancouver - https://youtu.be/IRpoJry1TWU

KHON-2 - https://youtu.be/sZPXWcx9CVQ

Breakfast Television Toronto - https://youtu.be/5S58qvNdJpw

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Welcome to the first episode of The Healthy Menu Bitesize Edition! These episodes will provide smaller, much more digestible chunks of content for you to listen to during small pockets of time during the day! 

In the first Healthy Menu Bitesize, we talk about whether menu labelling works, how it has the potential to change the public's behaviour and an interesting look at the psychology behind it.

Joining Karan on this episode of The Healthy Menu podcast is a cannabis writer, chef, and founder of Feels Like More, Jennifer Blakney.

Feels Like More has been active for over four years and was built from the ground up by Jennifer, who managed the entire process from recipe development, to production and marketing. She’s also been featured on Radio-Canada and in High Times magazine.

Jennifer and Karan will be discussing cannabis edibles within the foodservice industry, what hurdles she faced developing the Feels Like More Co and what the recent legalization of cannabis edibles means for her and her business.

Jennifer Blakney online:

Karan Dholakia, Social Media Content Producer and Videographer provides practical advice and tips on marketing your healthy dishes and foodservice business on social media. 

Christine and Karan discuss some of the ways to market on social media through practical, simple, and ethical methods. 

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This is part two of two of this special conversation we had with Natalie Lowe. 

We'll be talking about the sustainability within the foodservice industry with Natalie Lowe, who, in her 30-year professional career has worked in hospitality, hotels and events and continues to be a prominent figure within the event management sector. The last 14 of these years Natalie has owned and operated Celebrate Niagara, a destination management company based in the Niagara peninsula, that specializes in corporate and association events. 

Most recently, she finished her term as President of The Canadian Society of Professional Event Planners. Passionate about sustainability as well as local solutions to global problems, Natalie is the perfect guest to join us today about the importance of sustainability when it comes to the foodservice sector.

The Sustainable Events Forum online:

This is part one of two of this special episode and we'll be joined by Natalie Lowe. 

We'll be talking about the sustainability within the foodservice industry with Natalie, who, in her 30-year professional career has worked in hospitality, hotels and events and continues to be a prominent figure within the event management sector. The last 14 of these years Natalie has owned, operated and played a crucial role as President and Secretary Treasurer at Celebrate Niagara, a destination management company based in the Niagara peninsula, that specialize in corporate and association events.

Most recently, she became the President of The Canadian Society of Professional Event Planners.

Passionate about sustainability as well as local solutions to global problems, Natalie is the perfect guest to join us today about the importance of sustainability when it comes to the foodservice sector.

The Sustainable Events Forum online:

The Food Drug Administration’s legislation cites that “Manufacturers with $10 million or more in annual sales must switch to the new label by January 1, 2020; manufacturers with less than $10 million in annual food sales have until January 1, 2021 to comply.”

Over here in Canada, regulated parties have until December 14th 2021 to adhere to this new legislation.

In this episode of The Healthy Menu, Karan, the host for the podcast sits down with Christine Billinger, the Design and Marketing Manager to discuss the upcoming changes to the legislation. They'll also talk about why the change is so important, why the change occurred in the first place as well as what kind of impact it will have for consumers and businesses alike.

References:

On this episode, we’re talking about the importance of including nutritional information in school breakfast and lunch programs. What role do these programs shape student’s health and eating habits, and how does this impact Canadians’ overall public health? In particular, we’re focusing on how providing nutritional information at an early age paves the way for a healthier, more informed community that supports overall public health. Finally, we talk to MenuSano's Design and Marketing Manager, Christine Billinger, about the value of educating students about nutrition in schools and how school nutrition programs can support overall public health in Canada. 

MenuSano is an award-winning online nutrition analysis software trusted by food services, schools, hospitals, and food manufacturers for accurate and cost effective nutrition analysis.