VCD Project - Awareness Building and Stakeholder Engagement
Food and Beverage Focus Group Workshop
The TTMA hosted an interactive focus group discussion on the F&B sector of T&T on 15th November 2011 at the Kapok Hotel.This session was well attended with representatives of the public and private sector as well as business support agencies, academia and members of the agriculture sector. The session began with a presentation by Mr Megnath Gosein, the Chairman of the Food and Beverage Development Industry Committee. This presentation offered a contextual framework from which the sector could be viewed.
Mr Gosine's presentation - Status of the Food and Beverage Sector
This session also offered a presentation from Mr Michael Wolfson. Michael Wolfson is the Food and Beverage Specialist for the City of Toronto Economic Development and has created a 30 year career out of his passion for culinary arts and business. For 10 years Michael supported and drove new product development, sales, and marketing for a natural foods manufacturer and distributor. During his tenure he was part of many “firsts” in the food and beverage industry: Bulk food racks in Ontario supermarket chains, manufacture and distribution of rice cakes and rice chips, introduction of health and natural food products, many now staple grocery items in Canadian homes. In the mid 1980’s, at the insistence of his U.S. suppliers, Michael formed his own food brokerage and consulting business.
His insight and understanding of individual markets distinguished him in the brokerage business. A position with the Ontario Ministry of Agriculture and Food became a spring board for the future. It led quickly to his current position as the Food and Beverage Sector Specialist for the City of Toronto. In this role Michael champions industry wide initiatives such as: developing export opportunities for Ontario food processors, creating labour force training for this sector, incubation and commercialization of new products, and assisting large and small food processors in Toronto grow their operations. In his capacity as an industry advisor, Michael has participated on the Greater Toronto Agricultural Action Committee, Ontario Culinary Tourism Steering Committee, and Toronto Enviro‐food Working Group and the City of Toronto Food Strategy Steering Committee, the Board of the Toronto Food Business Incubator, the Advisory Committee for the Toronto Local Food Procurement Policy and the Advisory Committee for the GTA Corridor Food Sector Cluster initiative.
Mr. Wolfson's presentation - Toronto's Food Cluster
The final presnetation was offered by Dr Roger Voyer. Dr Voyer has more than 35 years experience in the development of science, technology and innovation strategies. Based on his knowledge of the theory and experience with the practice of high-technology cluster development, he has developed a robust methodology, based on eight characteristics of success, for benchmarking innovation performance at the community level. He has used this methodology successfully in several cluster studies at the community level, including Kingston, St John’s, Halifax, Montreal, Toronto, Vancouver, Ottawa-Gatineau in Canada, as well as Capetown and Gauteng, South Africa.
Dr Voyer has in-depth knowledge of innovation processes and is the co-author of the book The New Innovators which reviews the performance of Canadian high technology firms. He has published widely on innovation and cluster development in both the specialized and popular press (e.g. – author of Knowledge-Based Industrial Clustering: International Comparisons, in Local and Regional Systems of Innovation, eds. John de la Mothe and Gilles Paquet, Kluwer, 1998, in which his cluster benchmarking model was first presented; co-author of the Conference Board 2004 report, Clusters of Opportunity, Clusters of Risk).
Dr Roger Voyer offered the final presentation which addressed specifics of cluster development. His presentation highlighted Eight Charateristics of Success in cluster development.