Sustainable Food Production and Retail: Navigating Challenges and Seizing Opportunities

Adam Kehler is a director in FCC’s Strategy & Impact division. His team focuses on ways FCC can enable the Canadian agriculture & food industry to be a global leadership in sustainable food production, today and tomorrow, as sustainability expectations, at home and abroad, continue to evolve.
Adam came to FCC in 2011 to put his statistics and actuarial science background to use to advance data-driven decision-making throughout the organization – ranging from customer & market research to finance & risk management. This set him up well to appreciate the analytical advancements needed to keep pace with evolving sustainability expectations.
He is a prairie boy born and raised with a passion for telling the sustainability story of the industry – which has done a lot over the past two decades since he cleaned bins and hauled grain on the family farm in Saskatchewan.

Monica Hadarits is the Executive Director of the Canadian Roundtable for Sustainable Beef (CRSB), a multi-stakeholder not-for-profit organization that advances, measures and communicates continuous improvement in sustainability of the Canadian beef value chain. She leads the strategic direction, management, and funding for the organization.

Monica holds a master’s degree from the University of Guelph. Her research focused on climate change and adaptation in agriculture. She has family farm roots in Saskatchewan, experience working with rural communities across Canada, and international agriculture research experience in South America.

Nathan Steeghs is a Partner in Deloitte’s Sustainability & Climate Change practice with over 17 years of experience working in climate, energy and carbon management. Nathan currently leads Deloitte’s climate services nationally which includes supporting clients across industries with a strong focus on sustainable agriculture and food production. Nathan has worked with some of the largest agrifood producers and retailers in North America and recently led the development of an open-source framework for climate-smart agriculture focused on scaling sustainable food production in Canada.

Pascal Lachance joined Danone Canada in 2011. As Director of Sustainability at Danone Canada, Pascal is leading the sustainable development agenda of the company. In 2018, he successfully led the process for the company to become the country’s largest consumer-facing certified B Corporation. Since then, Danone Canada was recertified twice in 2021 and 2024. Under his leadership, Danone received in the past 4 years the Canadian Grocer’s Impact Award in the Sustainability, Support employees and Diversity, equity and inclusion categories amongst other recognitions. Pascal played a central role in the creation and the on-going work of the Circular Plastics Taskforce (CPT), a NGO aiming at finding solutions for the recycling of plastic packaging across Canada. Working with Danone’s flexitarian portfolio of trusted brands enables Pascal to provide insightful brand perspective on the role brands can play in our evolving society.