A learning culture, or a culture of learning, is where employees continue to seek, share, and apply new skills, competencies, and knowledge.

This approach benefits both the employees by helping to elevate the employee as a person and as a worker. It benefits the organization by affording them opportunities to transform as their employees grow.

Talent development leaders, which you can think of as coaches, say that for a learning culture to be possible an organization must have:

· Closely aligned learning and business strategies.

· Values that affirm the importance of learning.

· An atmosphere where learning is ingrained…

A quick look at the rates of obesity and food-related illness will show you that gluttony is a sin we don’t mind committing. Globally, the rate of obesity has tripled since 1975. Around 2.1 billion people worldwide are overweight, a third of whom are obese. We regularly consume more food than our bodies need and we’re quietly hoping we can avoid the consequences without having to change.

Along with gluttony, lust is another old-school physical sin alive and well today. While we are eating more processed, fatty foods than ever before, there is also a strong desire to remain slim…

Everyone has sat in a meeting and asked themselves, “Why am I here again?” or maybe you’ve sat in meetings and attempted to estimate how much money you waste.

Meetings Suck! When meetings become dysfunctional, they bring nothing useful to the company. There is a time for meetings, but many meetings are inefficient and should have taken part as email communication.

When I left private equity advisory and founded Tosla, I wanted to build an agile food technology-driven company. Dysfunctional meetings were headaches that I did not want to bring with me to my new company. How much would you…

“Most countries under that system, the iron curtain long ago gave way to membership of the EU and its single market. Yet consumers and politicians in the East remain convinced that goods sold in Western Europe — even well-known brands made by multinationals — are of superior quality to those sold under the same branding in their countries.” (Guardian)

The practice of dual quality standards is a long-term method used by multinational food companies and private label retail organizations. The companies in question generally produce multiple products similar in the finish but with different ingredients of varying quality. They then…

One rainy day back in 2014, I was sitting down with a newspaper and a cup of tea. I was reading about state-funded research into the viability of building a domestic sugar factory in my neighborhood. This might not have been anything unusual, but for the fact that ten years earlier, we already had a local sugar factory here which had failed dramatically. Here was a genuine possibility that a pile of hard-earned taxpayers’ money was about to be channeled into repeating the same mistake. So why were the powers that be entertaining the idea again at all? …

As a homegrown food company and start-up, I have found that business must be conducted one day at a time. When a company is new on the ground, there is very little data to create any sales projections, and hence, ordering can be a dangerous game at the best of times. Much of it is based on guesswork and ‘asking around’ the industry, not to mention utilizing Google.

I struggle to find value in the traditional model of contracting for us as a small business. Traditional contracting requires numbers that are set in stone, and prices are based on this…

I consider myself a decent person. I started and finished college on time and landed my first job just one month after graduating. I decided to get married ASAP and start my family as soon as possible. At the time, I was sure I wanted a big family, but I am now more than satisfied with my perfect family of four.

I am a person who likes to get up early, but I also like to watch good movies until late, not always a great combination my family and colleagues will tell you I am sure.

I am the owner…

“Trade show leads are like milk — they have a short shelf life, so don’t waste valuable time.” — Marlys Arnold

Since Roman times, budding food entrepreneurs have been told that trade shows and exhibitions are an extraordinary way of drumming up new business.

“Go to a trade show’ they said; ‘Invest in a stand and free samples’ they said; ‘If you build it, they will come’.”

Sadly, the reality of a food entrepreneur isn’t quite as straightforward as ‘Field of Dreams’. The first time we invested in a run of trade shows, we spent, on average, 25,000 euros per…