IAN BELL

Ian was set on his way into a culinary career very early in life. Visiting Smitty’s Pancake House with his grandmother, the cook let him flip the pancakes. He was hooked. He completed his apprenticeship with Four Seasons Hotel and never looked back, plying his trade all over North America, the Caribbean and the ocean between. After a time, he entered the University of Guelph and graduated with a B.Sc. in Food Science. He then joined Nestlé Canada as a food product developer, coupling his culinary knowledge with that of science and engineering to produce delicious foods for the retail and food service industries. His twenty-year product development career took him to Maple Leaf Foods, Maple Leaf Foods International and J.D. Sweid Foods. In 2018 Ian “hung out his shingle” as I.D. Bell Culinary Consulting, helping small food businesses grow by nurturing them from the kitchen through scaling up production to commercial quantities while meeting the technological and food safety demands required by today’s retailers. His proudest moment when he was asked to join the team at Goodly Foods.