Insights with Don Mills and David Campbell- An Acadia Broadcasting Podcast

The Bertossi Group of restaurants is the largest privately owned group of fine dining restaurants east of Montreal. Stephanie and Maurizio Bertossi opened their first restaurant , the Perla in the 1980s.  Few who live in or have visited Halifax have not dined at one of their well-known restaurants that have been around for decades, including the Bicycle Thief, Ristorante a Mano, La Frasca and il Mercato Trattoria.The Group is owned by Hakan Uluer, a personable and ambitious immigrant originally from Istanbul. Uluer began as a dishwasher in his native Turkey before ending up in Halifax with his Nova Scotian born wife and working with the Bertossi where he eventually became first a partner and finally the owner. The secret of the Bertossi Group's longevity and success is attention to detail and consistency in service delivery, dining experience and food quality. Uluer recently opened two new restaurants on the Halifax waterfront, Water Pool and Matadoras, and now employs over 750 people with an expectation of growing that number to 1,000 by the end of 2025. It is a true entrepreneurial story.

On this week’s Insights, Don and David talk with Heidi Leslie, founder & CEO of Halifax-based Crux Energy Consulting to discuss the energy sector in Atlantic Canada.  We talk about artificial intelligence and cloud computing and the demand for data centres and whether this is an opportunity for Atlantic Canada.  We discuss the Newfoundland-Quebec electricity deal and other energy generation projects announced in 2024.  Leslie also weighs in on natural gas and makes a strong case that the region will be using natural gas for decades to come.  If you want to know her view on green hydrogen, nuclear energy, what we are going to pay for electricity and other energy-related topics, click on the link or download wherever you get your podcasts.  

This week Gilles Volpé, President of NB Gas with Liberty Utilities joined Don and David on the Insights podcast. Liberty Utilities is the natural gas distribution company in New Brunswick.  Gilles provides an important tutorial on the sources and uses of natural gas now and into the future.  On an energy equivalent basis, New Brunswick currently uses as much natural gas as it does electricity. Most large industrial companies across the province use it.  In southern New Brunswick, almost all hospitals, schools, government buildings and other big commercial organizations heat with gas.  A considerable amount of electricity is already produced using natural gas and NB Power is building a new gas-fired generation facility in the Moncton region. Where does the gas come from?  Unfortunately, mostly from Alberta and the southern United States. In many cases it costs more to transport the gas thousands of kilometres than the cost of the gas itself.  We talk about the potential to green the gas system in the years ahead through renewable sources and other topics.

On boxing day of 2024, we share one of the most listened to podcasts of 2024.  In this episode of the Insights Podcast, we focus on Canada's National Shipbuilding Strategy and the impact of that strategy on Atlantic Canada. Building ships for the navy is a complex and complicated endeavour and there is probably no other group than the Irvings that were capable of competing and winning a national bid to build those ships in Halifax. Irving Shipbuilding has 2,400 people working to complete the Arctic Offshore Patrol Ships (AOPS) portion of their contract and is readying to begin to build the combatant "River Class" ships. They have developed a skilled and capable workforce and provided Canada with a sovereign ability to build its own military ships. The company has already spent more than $500 million in the region since the beginning of the AOPS program and contracts with more than 130 companies across the region. In our conversation with their CEO, Dirk Lesko, a veteran shipbuilder, he talks about the further investments needed to prepare for the combatant program, his pride in his leadership group and labour force and how the current shipbuilding facilities compare globally. It is a big deal for our region and well worth a listen.

The tourism industry across Atlantic Canada took a significant hit during the pandemic.  On this week's Insights, Don and David check in with Joanne Bérubé-Gagné from the Tourism Industry Association of New Brunswick to discuss the rebound since. We cover a wide range of topics from the evolution of accommodations to 'backyard' tourism to new product development and encouraging the thousands of newcomers to explore their adopted province.  We also discuss Joanne's thoughts about the new provincial government and its potential vision for tourism.  Drawing from his nearly 40 years' experience working with tourism clients, Don weighs in with his thoughts on how to strengthen the tourism sector and its impact across Atlantic Canada. 

 Although JD Irving may not be a household name that is familiar to many, it is the largest vertically integrated conglomerate in Atlantic Canada and one of the biggest in Canada with more than 20,000 employees. It is run by brothers Jim and Robert Irving as CO-CEOs. Robert has responsibility, among others, for Midland Trucking, Midland Courier, Irving Tissue and Cavendish Farms among from his head office in Dieppe and employs more than 2,000 people in the Moncton area alone, including 700 head office jobs. In a rare and exclusive interview with the Insights Podcast, he talks about the companies under his direction, the continued growth of the companies and some major recent capital investments and even succession. It is a surprisingly candid conversation with one of the region's most important yet reticent business leaders, who shares a lot of facts not previously known publicly. 

Few people will be aware of Emmerson Packaging, an Amherst based manufacturing company that produces packaging for the paper goods, pet food and food markets. Nonetheless, most consumers would have their packaging in their homes with clients like McCain Foods, Cavendish and High Liner Foods, not to mention house branded products from Walmart, Costco, Sobeys and Loblaws. The company is nearly 70 years old and was founded in Saint John, New Brunswick. Its main production facility (300,000 sq ft) is in Amherst with more than 350 employees and another 100 at its Belleville, Ontario location. Their third generation CEO, Stephen Emmerson was our guest on this episode of the Insights Podcast and talks about the challenges of competing for business across North America and why it is possible to do so from Amherst, Nova Scotia, even in a capital intensive manufacturing business. It is an impressive business success story.

Millers Expand "Parts for Trucks" Nationally  Corey and Brett Miller purchased Parts for Trucks in 2017. The company specializes in serving the heavy duty and commercial truck market.  At the time, they owned the well-known Miller Tire. Working with Seafort Capital, they did essentially a reverse takeover of Fleet Brake in 2022, a bigger, western Canadian based competitor that nearly doubled the size of the company. That acquisition made Parts for Trucks a coast to coast national company. The company is headquartered in Dartmouth and is now the largest in its sector in Canada.  In this episode of the Insights Podcast, we talk with Corey Miller, the company's CEO about the company's overall growth strategy, its recent expansion and some of the challenges of integrating two companies together with somewhat different cultures and business practices. 

Higher Liner Foods is a Nova Scotia based company that is North America's largest processor of value-added frozen seafood products under a number of brands like Fisher Boy, High Liner and Catch of the Day. Its annual revenue exceeds $1 billion annually and the company has 1,200 employees. Athough it is listed on the TSX, the Hennigar family owns 38% of the stock. It recently celebrating its 125th Anniversary. In this episode of the Insights Podcast, we talked with the company's CEO, Paul Jewer,about the company's success and how it pivoted from being a harvester of fish to exclusively a processor of fish following the cod moratorium in the 1990s. The company sources 20 species of fish from around the world for its three processing plants, the largest of which is in Lunenburg with nearly 300 employees. It is yet another story of a successful Atlantic Canadian company competing internationally and generating export revenues for our region.

Atlantic Business Magazine is celebrating the 35th Anniversary of its founding by Edwina and Hubert Hutton who sold the magazine to their daughter Tonia Hutton and long-time employee and editor Dawn Chafe a few years ago. The Huttons were a dynamic force who built the Atlantic Business brand together. Edwina recently passed away and we dedicate this podcast to her memory as an outstanding businesswoman. Atlantic Business is now one of the last print publications owned and operated by Atlantic Canadians. Most print publications have struggled with the fragmentation of news coverage and the growing dominance of social media, especially in terms of the competition for advertising revenue. Atlantic Business has demonstrated its ability to adapt to a rapidly changing market environment by developing not just a magazine but a business network enterprise that has established a number of signature business recognition programs and events that now contribute about a third of their annual revenues. Atlantic Business has led the fight to highlight and recognize business success since its very beginnings. It is a great story of resilience and perseverance.