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Jonathan Forbes
Founder
Jonathan is long-time forager, cook and food preserver, and the founder of Forbes Wild Foods. His working life has been spent largely on economic and cultural development issues with a focus on community-based policy. He started Forbes Wild Foods in 1998 to reacquaint people with indigenous foods that have largely been forgotten, and besides sourcing wild foods for the company, he currently spends his time writing, training pickers, and helping to build awareness for a sustainable and ecologically sound approach to the harvesting of non-timber forest products. He lives in the Noisy River Valley, a two-hour drive northwest of Toronto, where he has foraged wild foods for more than fifty years.
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Dyson Forbes
Chief Operations Officer
With more than twenty years of experience in the food industry, and over twenty five years in film, television, and content creation, Dyson has a unique set of skills well suited to food marketing and education. He has worked with Forbes Wild Foods almost from the start. As well as marketing wild foods, Dyson leads foraging trips for small parties, and does presentations to chefs, student chefs, and organizations with an interest in food. He is involved in several on-line initiatives about food trends, farming and resource management, and cultural development.
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Seth Goering
Sales Manager
Seth has more than fifteen years of experience with foraging and selling wild foods. (Longer if you count blueberry picking as a child). He was mentored in the art of wildcrafting by Jonathan Forbes and went on to become Sales Manager for the company. In addition to working with chefs and restaurant owners, Seth is a constant presence in Toronto’s farmers markets, notably the Brickworks and Wychwood Barns markets, where he enthusiastically educates people about the wild foods they can add to their repertoire.
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Julia Rogers
Operations Coordinator
Julia looks after Forbes’ fresh, dried and frozen foods: ordering, receiving, packaging and coordinating onward deliveries and shipments. Her relationship with the company began over fifteen years ago, when she was a wholesale customer, purchasing for Toronto retailers, and also using many of the products in her personal wine and cheese catering business. She has three decades of diverse professional food and wine experience, and holds multiple globally recognized wine and spirits certifications, culminating in the WSET Diploma in Wines and Spirits. Nothing makes Julia happier than talking with Forbes’ retail, wholesale and foodservice customers about wild food origins and flavours, and their culinary, brewing and distillation uses.
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Karen Knopf
Board of Directors
Karen Knopf has an MBA from the Schulich School of Business, York University and earned her CGA / CPA designation in 1999. As a consultant to not-for-profits and charities, Karen’s practice was focused on financial accounting and management. Karen’s work for clients included emergency and on-going controllership services, financial management system analysis and improvement, audit preparation and oversight, budget development, implementation and monitoring and the preparation of effective and responsive internal and external financial reports.
Over the last seventeen years Karen has worked with over 40 different organizations, providing system analysis, the design and implementation of new systems and conversions, coaching around developing a robust understanding of Statements of Financial Position, developing models for analysis and guidance, project management and Director of Finance services. Karen has worked with Jonathan in various companies and capacities over the last 40 years. She was a member of the Board of Directors of Forbes Wild Foods from September 2010 to November 2016 and rejoined the Board effective January 2022.
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Derek Blais
Board of Directors
Derek Blais has been solving problems using creativity from a young age. Having attended a high school bearing Marshall McLuhan’s name, Derek became immersed in media theory, technology and all things Adobe. After starting his own company in high school and entering the ad world as a developer, Derek worked his way up, becoming the #1 Art Director in Canada
along the way and regardless of having never attended university, gave a TEDx talk on creativity and collaboration at one.
His human-centric approach to the work and creative leadership are lauded by both his colleagues and his clients, with his work and the work of his teams having been recognized at every major national and international award show. His most recent project ‘Missing Matoaka’ was the most awarded Canadian campaign in Cannes this year and the most awarded Canadian campaign ever at The One Show with 16 pencils and two Grand Prix – making Derek the #1 ECD at The 2023 One Show. He shares the same Forbes 30 Under 30 list as fellow Torontonian Drake and as a proud member of Onedia Nation of the Thames, he’s been calling this land home since time immemorial. Outside of advertising, Derek’s photography has been featured at Art Basel, his music videos have been recognized in Cannes and his most recent creative project, a seasonal restaurant on Georgian Bay landed him on the cover of Cottage Life magazine.
Derek is currently Chief Creative Officer at Lifelong Crush – Broken Heart Love Affair’s sister agency.
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Denise Bolduc
Board of Directors
Denise Bolduc is an established director, producer and creator who is driven to transform perspectives and activate change. For over 30 years, her career represents countless contributions and connections with numerous celebrated artists, thinkers, communities, and leading cultural institutions nationally and globally. She intentionally curates for community connectivity and has led a multitude of arts events elevating the careers of numerous
Indigenous creatives and leaders. She is currently conspiring and collaborating on a number of projects, is a member of more than a handful of councils, boards and collectives, has received several awards for her work, and is an active mentor, instructor, host, facilitator, witness and arts advisor. Denise has a deep love for wild food and is an advocate for sustainable harvesting practices. She is most interested in the impacts a diet rich in wild food has on the health and well being of Indigenous Peoples. She has been an active member of the Forbes Wild Foods; Board of Directors almost since its inception. Denise is Ojibwe-Anishinaabe and French, born and raised in the Lake Superior | Robinson Huron Treaty Territory, and is a member of the Batchewana First Nation with familial ties in Garden River First Nation.
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Jonathan Forbes
Board of Directors
Since the age of 5 when he caught his first sunfish, Jonathan has been a keen forager of indigenous foods. As a child, and guided by his mother, who was a wild mushroom lover and expert identifier, he immersed himself in all things wild, from net fishing smelts in Lake Ontario to picking wild raspberries along the Scarborough Bluffs and gathering giant puffballs and morel mushrooms in Mulmur and Nottawasaga townships. Jonathan learned to cook at an early age, and as a young teenager on the farm, he discovered wild leeks, wild garlic, fiddleheads, speckled trout, wild strawberries, black raspberries and a long list of delicious flavours that remain an important part of his diet. Being witness to the harsh environmental costs of the urbanizing of Southern Ontario, in 1998 he established Forbes Wild Foods, as a means of educating people about the tremendous treasure of indigenous foods that surround us, but remain unknown to most Canadians, and the important need to protect our natural environment and stop habitat loss.
He has been a long-time wild food forager, cook and food product producer. His working life has been spent largely on economic and social development issues with a focus on community-based policy. He currently spends his time working with a network of harvesters, writing, training and helping to build awareness for a sustainable and ecologically sound approach to wild foods harvesting. He lives in the Noisy River Valley, 2 hours northwest of Toronto, where he has been harvesting wild foods for over 65 years.
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