Sophie Mendes van Delft is a world traveler and has lived in France, the United States, and now, Canada. She’s explored all walks of life trying to find what makes her passionate and what makes work enjoyable and ended up finding her place marketing in the food industry, where she absolutely loved how passionate the people are there.
In this episode, we go into detail on social media, and the power of community, and talk a bit about the emerging Generation Z. We also talk about the really fiery hot Canadian trends in the food industry such as local food.
But perhaps the most important part of the interview is the confirmation that the food industry is full of passionate individuals and that everyone, no matter if you’re a scientist, a chef, or a marketer, you’re welcomed here.
Sponsor – BAKERpedia
This episode is brought to you by BAKERpedia – your one-stop, resource that answers all your questions on industry trends, ingredient information, food safety and more. It’s shared knowledge, freely available, always. BAKERpedia.com – we do all the thinking so you can focus on your business.
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Show Notes
When someone asks what you do for a living, what do you tell them in a sentence or less?: I create content and community and you can’t have one without the other
What comes first, content or community?: I think content, but Sophie thinks community.
The Wolfman, a chef in Canada
How do you distribute content?: We have two platforms. A blog and a magazine with a different audience
Restaurants Canada – Teach Industry
Menu Mag – Inspires industry
All social media has a different platform. For Restaurants Canada, advocacy is important so Twitter is the best
Foodservice and Food Industry focuses on Instagram because it’s a very visual profile
What do you like best about your job: I get to meet so many passionate people
George Brown in the Ontario Region. We had a bunch United States students and they asked for advice. Someone said that in the food industry, it’s ok to change paths
Describe the steps it took to get to where you are today?:
I went to medical school first, and hated it. Then I went to business school and hated it. I loved food in Ontario and wanted to get into the industry but didn’t know how. One day, a lady saw that I was upset and said “just do marketing for food companies”
We eat food more than we talk about it
Soft skills that are important in the industry: Empathy
Technical tools: The platforms themselves have a huge amount of tools. For example, Instagram can track every single post and who is looking and use hashtags to find things.
Instagram Direct Question ability. Instagram also might allow you to book a restaurant in the future.
Twitter is super dependent on the audience.
RC show: Restaurants Canada Show in February
Toronto is the food capital in the world.
What is the food capital in the world?: New York, but perhaps California
Local food is a very important aspect in Canada. Most of the new chefs are focused on “local”, For activism, they focus beyond local
Mark Brand – Uses his network and community to end world hunger
#beinghungrysucks
Greasy Spoon Dinners– a way to raise money to go to places to build ways for people to get jobs and eat properly
Why does your food job rock?: I get to be the bridge between the physical world and digital world and connect and engage and learn and help people.
Give and Take – Adam Grant -both Sophie and I recommend this book
Originals – Adam Grant
The biggest challenge the food industry needs to face right now?: Mental house. For food service, long hours and lots of stress. You can’t let arguments fester and management has to lead by example.
Most chefs know about this culture and are trying to amend it
What is something in the food industry you’d like to know more about?: I would really like to talk to students and know why they joined the industry
Generation Z – Use Snapchat, Instagram, but never facebook
Musical.ly (Tik Tok)
My sister is 8 years younger than me and we don’t communicate the same way.
Millennials looking things up in the internet: puts up key words
Generation Z: Will write questions directly to google
She won’t trust the same websites I do
Who inspired you to get into food?: It was an internal fire. My family was really involved in food. We would butcher animals on the kitchen floor. I loved to bake and took any opportunity to bake.
What is your favorite book?: I have a ton of cookbooks. But there is one I keep going back to. Plenty and Plenty More from Yotam Ottolenghi
Favorite food: Not sure. I know I have a limit of eating cookies
Adam Yee: I love smoked seabass because you get a lot of different textures and flavor that meld well.
Oh, now I remember: Tartare. Had some with wild game meat
Ethiopia Tartare with ingeria
Clarified Butter, Berber Spices, Tartare
Do you have any advice for someone who would follow your path?: Go for it. You’ll be with very driven people, people with very interesting pasts that has influenced their positions. Their passion and enthusiasm is quite inspiring.
Where can we find you for advice?: Instagram @SophieYOUPI