Who Is Coming To The RC Show Table?

Canada’s restaurant authority shares 2019 speaker highlights, inviting a cross-section of the industry’s most influential voices in sustainable practices to the main stage.

Restaurants Canada’s 2019 RC Show is convening hospitality industry leaders and CEOs from top restaurants — including McDonalds, Starbucks, KFC Canada, A&W and many more — to share their stories and lead the conversation around the true meaning of sustainability for foodservice.

Here are a few of the sustainability trendsetters coming to the RC Show mainstage Feb. 24-26, 2019, who will be covering everything from restaurants of the future to technological innovations:

Alan Smithson, CEO of MetaVRse
Smithson heads up MetaVRse, the world leading XR for business product development. His company builds bleeding-edge, virtual and augmented reality solutions for the world’s leading brands, revealing how they will change what the world will look like by 2037. This technology has been instrumental in helping train staff, especially in the bar category. Learn more about Smithson in the Learning Lounge and Restaurant of the Future interactive exhibit space.

Manjit Minhas, Minhas Breweries, Distillery and Winery, CBC’s Dragons’ Den
As a Dragon on CBC’s Dragons’ Den and the co-founder of Minhas Breweries, Distillery and Winery, Minhas is giving the big boys a run for their money. To date, her companies have sold more than six billion pints of beer. Minhas is also the first brewer in Canada to voluntarily put a “management warning” on her beer cans. She believes science paired with social responsibility can do a lot of good and uses her engineering background to produce beer with the least possible amount of treatment chemicals, gas, electricity and water. Hear from Minhas on the Ones to Watch panel as well as part of the Gamechanger line-up at the Breakfast With Champions.

Kiki Adami, Founder, Veganizer
Adami has been single handedly helping restaurants across the globe “veganize” their menus since 2013. The New York-based consultant has made her mark in Canada, the U.S., Australia and Israel — last year alone having worked with 50+ restaurants in five cities. Next up, Adami will co-found the world’s first vegan food hall in 2019. Learn more about Adami’s story and veganism on the Capitalizing on Plant-Based Menus: This Is Just The Veganing panel.

Brad Long, Chef & Owner of Café Belong & Belong Catering
This Canadian born chef is known for his frequent appearances on The Food Network’s Restaurant Makeover. Long is an author and operates a successful restaurant that focuses on sustainability andaims to combine ethics, nutrition and delicious tastes into all the food he produces. A Garland Canada Competition judge, Long will be featured in the Restaurant of the Future and the Save On Energy Foodservice Forum.

Lisa Campbell, CEO, Lifford Cannabis Solutions
Lisa Campbell is a well-respected thought leader in the cannabis space. The CEO of Lifford Cannabis Solutions, a cannabis subsidiary of Lifford Wine & Spirits, she aims to help cannabis companies navigate the emerging cannabis industry across Canada and beyond. Campbell became a true cannabis expert by working extensively in international drug policy over the years and is currently the Chair of the Ontario Cannabis Consumer & Retail Alliance. She will be joining the Future of Cannabis in Canada: When Will Pot Be in Our Pots? panel, as well as the Restaurant of the Future.

Donald Burns, Author and Restaurant Coach
The author of Your Restaurant Sucks!, Burns has been named one of “The Top Restaurant Experts to Follow” from 2016-2018.  Behind the scenes, this in-demand “Restaurant Coach” works closely with restaurant owners, operators and culinary professionals to build their brand, increase their profits and strengthen their team with a sustainability-based approach. You can find Burns at the RC Leadership Conference.

Adam Corrin, Freshii
Joining the Gamechanger line-up at the Breakfast With Champions, Corrin has served as Freshii’s Chief Operating Officer since 2016 and as a Director since 2017. Inspired by small, independent corner delis, Corrin and his brother Matthew sought to stimulate the fresh food market by creating a scalable chain that had it all. Today, Freshii operates more than 300 locations across 85+ cities in 20 countries.

David Allison, Valuegraphics
This data pioneer and consumer behaviour expert will be joining industry leaders speaking at the Breakfast With Champions. His company Valuegraphics offers the first big data tool to give organizations and industries the data they need to motivate a target audience using core human values, going beyond traditional demographics to better understand consumers. He is an accomplished keynote speaker and has written three books on various market-motivation techniques.

Patrick Kriss, Chef & Owner, Alo
Kriss is the chef and owner of Alo, a contemporary French restaurant and cocktail bar that has been ranked number one on Canada’s 100 Best Restaurants two years in a row. Mentored by celebrity chef Daniel Boulud, Kriss is always looking for the best ingredients, celebrating the finest in seasonal fare. You can hear from him during the Driving Your Business Through Customer Experience fireside discussion.

Natalie Green, Head of Industry for Food, Beverages and Restaurants at Google Canada
Joining this year’s RC Leadership Conference line-up, Green is the Head of Industry for Google Canada’s Food, Beverages and Restaurants team, a role she has held for more than three years. In this position she has developed a passion for using digital to help drive growth in the Canadian food industry.

Charles Khabouth, CEO & Founder, INK Entertainment
Ernst and Young’s 2018 Entrepreneur of The Year™ in the Ontario Entertainment and Hospitality category, Khabouth will be joining the Ones to Watch panel. He is recognized for his out-of-the-box thinking and vision for creating a thriving hospitality industry in downtown Toronto by elegantly fusing together art and commerce.

Elayne Duff, Duff on the Rocks
Duff is an accomplished professional with over 15 years within the beverage and alcohol industry. A mixologist and educator, Duff is widely recognized by distributers, trade and consumers alike for delivering highly entertaining and interactive training programs, celebrity brand partnerships, brand-building events, as well as being an award-winning luxury brand ambassador, mixologist and educator. Find Duff leading various sessions on the Bar & Beverage Stage, and as a judge for the Beyond the Rail Bartending Competition.

Jean-Francois Archambault, Founder & CEO, La Tablée des Chefs
With his work at La Tablée des Chefs, Archambault hopes to socially mobilize chefs and cooks because he believes in their incredible ability to intervene on the issue of hunger and to address its many challenges. La Tablée des Chefs is recovering over 200 tons of edible excess food from chefs, feeding over 500,000 Canadians in need annually, and the business also runs culinary workshops in over 100 underprivileged high schools and foster care units. This work was recognized with the Prime Minister’s Social Innovator Award in 2015, and most recently received the Meritorious Service Cross from the Governor General of Canada. Learn more about Archambault’s work on the Ones to Watch panel.

You can check out these industry thought leaders and more at the upcoming RC Show taking place at the Enercare Centre in Toronto from Feb. 24-26, 2019. To learn more and to register for media accreditation, please visit rcshow.com.

Media Contacts:
Tianna Goguen │ 416-360-6522 │ tianna@punchcanada.com
Lisa Raffaele │647-837-1265│lisa@punchcanada.com

About RC Show
The largest foodservice and hospitality event in Canada RC Show will bring the industry together to shop,taste, learn, connect and do business. Attendees will find three days of inspiring talks, demos, workshops and competitions, on- and off- site networking and dinner events and 250,000 square feet andeight pavilions of product innovation.

About Restaurants Canada
Restaurants Canada (previously CRFA) is a growing community of 30,000 foodservice businesses, including restaurants, bars, caterers, institutions and suppliers. We connect our members from coast to coast, through services, research and advocacy for a strong and vibrant restaurant community. Canada’s restaurant industry is an $89 billion industry, directly employs 1.2 million Canadians, is the number one source of first jobs, and serves 22 million customers every day.