Highlights from the 2024 Coffee Association of Canada Conference

The C-Suite Panel, featuring Lori Digulla, SVP & general manager, Starbucks Canada; Lori Hatcher, CMO, Kicking Horse Coffee; and Ed Hoehn, COO, Atomo Coffee, touched on a wide range of topics, from value to innovation, customization and sustainability. The takeaway was that coffee is more than a beverage, it’s an emotional experience that provides people the opportunity to connect.

“Coffee forever has been one of those olive branches, a way to bring people together,” says Digulla.

The CAC also took a moment to honour its Charity of the Year, with Kyle Engelman, executive director, Grounds for Health, giving a moving presentation about the industry’s efforts to empower women farmers around the globe in the battle against cervical cancer, which kills women in developing countries at a much higher rate due to lack of screening.

The Food Professor, aka Dr. Sylvain Charlebois, professor, Dalhousie University in Halifax, sat down with conference host Tony Chapman of Chatter that Matters, to discuss coffee industry trends, covering a wide range of topics, from price increases to healthy consumption and the push to innovate.

“If you don’t want to innovate, you are going to be in trouble,” said Charlebois.

The focus turned to the economy and Charlebois spoke about the divide between the frugal and affluent, with the squeezed middle.

“Prices are going to remain a very sensitive point for a long time,” said Charlebois, who predicts that the retail landscape, particularly in the grocery sector, will continue to cater to a more frugal customer for some time.

Foodservice performance, he said, reflects the times we're in from a divided economic perspective: “Fast food is doing very well. Fine dining is doing very well too. But in casual dining, I am seeing empty dining rooms…. That middle is being squashed right now.”

The Innovation panel, moderated by Stephen Gray, managing director, Monin, featured Amit Ashekenazi, VP sales, Tastewise; Jean-Phillippe Leblanc, VP, coffee, Keurig Dr Pepper Canada; and Matt Stiver, engineer turned creator/host, Lifestyle Lab. The group discussed increasingly coffee-savvy consumers, the need to innovate to capture a new cohort of coffee drinkers, at-home consumption and the role of AI in innovation.

“[AI] is not the end itself, but it’s a means to it…. it makes you be efficient,” said Ashekenazi.

The day culminated with a keynote one-on-one between Chapman and Arlene Dickinson, founder and general partner, District Ventures Capital. 

In a wide-ranging and intimate conversation, Dickinson talked of her family’s immigrant experience, the sacrifices made after moving to Canada from South Africa, the demise of her marriage and subsequent rise of her business (“It was at that moment in time I had to figure out what I was going to do to put food on the table”), as well as her reluctant path to finding fame on CBC’s Dragons' Den and reinventing herself (and her business) in the wake of adversity: “Persistence is one of the most underrated qualities an entrepreneur needs to have.”

She encouraged attendees not to wait for a crisis moment to spur reinvention, but rather to take the time to create change. “There is room at the top for everyone.”

While Dickinson will continue to invest in the food and health space, she also touched on her next goal: “I want to help change the agenda for seniors in our country.”