Lee combines her unique background to innovate in the food industry, focusing on sustainable, nutritious solutions.
We’re spotlighting Team Members who are Raising the Good in Food to show how our Purpose comes to life through passion, innovation, and everyday impact.
Meet Lee Cadesky, Director of Meal Solutions at Maple Leaf Foods — and a true original. With a master’s in dairy science and a start in aerospace engineering, Lee’s journey into food innovation is anything but typical. Straight out of grad school, she invented a way to turn bugs into tofu and went on to co-found two companies, one of which patented a line of edible insect ingredients.
For two years, Lee led R&D at an insect farm in the Netherlands, commercializing sustainable proteins. But the distance from her wife made her long for home. In 2020, she returned to Canada and joined Maple Leaf Foods, drawn by its diverse portfolio and dual focus on meat and plant-based proteins.
Today, Lee oversees iconic brands like Holiday® Luncheon Meat and Tenderflake lard — staples in Canadian kitchens — while also driving innovation in the frozen breakfast space. Together with her team, Lee supports Schneider’s new egg bites and breakfast sandwiches. Since launching in 2024, these products quickly captured 20% of the savory frozen breakfast market, an incredible success by our innovation and product development teams. Around the office, egg bites are a fan favourite — Lee included.
Curious to know more about Lee? Keep reading.
What is your role and what do you do daily at Maple Leaf Foods?
I’m a marketing director for six categories: pastry, boxed meat, canned meat, meal solutions, frozen breakfast, and baking.
For me, every day is different — that’s part of the fun of working at Maple Leaf Foods. I work with my team and our cross-functional supports in the business to ensure that we are making, selling, and delivering the best possible product, and that we are doing it with the best outcomes for our stakeholders and our shareholders.
It’s important that we meet the pulse of innovation and design products that are going to meet the future needs of consumers in these categories.
What does Raising the Good in Food mean to you?
To me, it’s about making food matter for people. I love being a part of a system that makes sure that when consumers go to the store, there’s food for them there, and it’s affordable, tastes good, it’s nutritious, and wholesome. It’s really great to be part of a system that that’s building a future where food is still on the table 20 years from now – without sacrificing the planet to sustain today’s food supply.
I love that food is sort of non-controversial — I think it’s a net good. It’s nice to think that I can have differences of opinion in politics with all sorts of people around the world, but we can still share a meal together right and bond over a shared love of food.
How do you Raise the Good in Food in your everyday life – inside and outside of work?
At work, I think it’s really what we do every day with the team to contribute to our Purpose. It’s about making sure that we’ve designed products that are going to delight consumers and really satisfy them. There’s also making sure that we’ve figured out efficient ways to operate our business so we can ensure that products are affordable, that we can meet sustainability standards, and that our products are safe.
In my daily life, I normally do all the cooking in our house. My wife is a great cook, but I just like to do it, which goes back to my love of food.
I also do a lot of experiments in the kitchen. There is a carboy of vinegar that’s been fermenting for four months on my counter. There are also many bottles of homemade wine in the cellar. Right now, there’s kombucha that’s ready to bottle too. My apple tree in the backyard is blooming, which is very exciting for me because it only blooms every two years, and I get to press cider once the apples are ready.
Having joy and a love for food that also touches into the culinary and the scientific sides lets me feel connected and lets me share my joy for food with others.
How do you inspire others to Raise the Good in Food?
If someone wants to talk wonky food science with me, I’m all ears. I used to teach food chemistry and food engineering, and I live for it. I also do a little bit of writing on the side about journalism for food science and things in that area and, whenever I get the chance, I love to teach and share food.
I live in a really wonderful community, and I have a great relationship with my neighbours. So, we’re always sharing food and things like plants that will eventually become food. That really inspires me, I hope it inspires others in my community too.
What’s your favourite product from our family of brands? How do you prepare it?
Our Cappola prosciutto is amazing. It’s actually the product we make that has the fewest ingredients because it’s only two: meat and salt. I will eat it with my hands, right out of the package.
Funnily enough, the first product that I worked on here was a three-ingredient turkey and we were so proud that it had only three ingredients. Then I found out that our Cappola prosciutto only has two!
When I bought my house, I was so excited about the idea that I finally got to cure my own hams. I met up with a friend who was a chef, who taught me how to make prosciutto and we cured two hams together, I had them hanging in my basement. And, because Maple Leaf Foods is such a wonderful place, when I first joined, I brought one of those hams into the office and a former Team Member who’s an amazing expert in dry cured meat cut one up with me and taught me what I did wrong and how to finish the hams into prosciutto.
There’s something so magical to me about the transformation of meat and salt and what you can do with those two ingredients to transform flavour through the chemistry of the animal. That’s the amazing thing about food.
