In 2013, Simon Lester and his wife, Courtenay Vuchnich personally discovered how large the food gap involving allergies was. Both of their daughters have varying food allergies, some of them life-threatening if triggered.

When Musharaf Syed decided to create a supplements business with Aisha Yang in 2009, their business plan didn't call for a manufacturing facility. As so often happens in entrepreneurial endeavors, fate intervenes.

Candy Industry Magazine recently coordinated a trip to the province with help from Virgilio Rubini, president of ChocoStyle Int’l. While there we also got the chance to visit Laura Secord, Candara, and Morris National’s gift basket business.

I’ll have full coverage of the Nashville trip in the March issue, and full coverage of the trip to Canada in April. But in the meantime, I want to take a moment to look at the people behind the companies.

“We have all the competitors that everybody else does in the States,” say founder Robin Burnette. “We have all the grocery stores, Walmart. They’re selling chocolate bars. [But] in Canada they sell all Canadian chocolate bars. A majority of Canadians go south in the winter time, so we carry a lot of U.S. chocolate bars. We’ve got that chocolate bar that you like from the States that you found, and we also bring in the British chocolate and a lot of Dutch licorice.”

Rona Ambrose, Canada’s Minister of Health, has launched a series of online public consultations on proposed changes to the way nutrition information is presented on labels.

Natra has started operations at its plant in Canada, the company’s first facility outside of Europe.