The Empire Company appoints Pierre St-Laurent as CEO

Nov 05, 2025

The Empire Company, headquartered in Stellarton, Nova Scotia, has appointed Pierre St-Laurent, as president and Chief Executive Officer of Empire and its wholly-owned subsidiary, Sobeys Inc. He will also serve on the Board of Directors.

This appointment follows the company's announcement earlier this year of president & CEO Michael Medline's intention to retire from Empire. Mr. St-Laurent's appointment is effective immediately with Mr. Medline remaining to support a thorough transition into December.

"After a robust and well-governed succession process that included both an extensive global search and consideration of internal candidates, our Board is delighted to have identified our next CEO from within our organization," said James Dickson, chair of the Board of Empire. "Pierre is a seasoned retail executive who has served as one of the key architects of our company's success and our Board is unanimous that he is the right choice to create long-term value for all of our stakeholders. Choosing a leader from within our senior leadership ranks speaks to the depth of talent in our company and reinforces that our greatest strength lies in our people -- those who know our business, live our values and have helped shape our success."

A 34-year veteran of Empire, St-Laurent has served in increasingly senior roles with the company, across the finance, distribution and logistics, retail operations and merchandising functions. In 2019, he was appointed Executive Vice President & Chief Operating Officer for Empire, overseeing the company's merchandising, operations and supply chain functions across Canada, while also serving as a key member of the company's executive leadership team. In 2020, he was named one of Canada's 50 Best Executives by the Globe and Mail's Report on Business Magazine.

Source : The Grower

Video: Seeing the Whole Season: How Continuous Crop Modeling Is Changing Breeding

Plant breeding has long been shaped by snapshots. A walk through a plot. A single set of notes. A yield check at the end of the season. But crops do not grow in moments. They change every day.

In this conversation, Gary Nijak of AerialPLOT explains how continuous crop modeling is changing the way breeders see, measure, and select plants by capturing growth, stress, and recovery across the entire season, not just at isolated points in time.

Nijak breaks down why point-in-time observations can miss critical performance signals, how repeated, season-long data collection removes the human bottleneck in breeding, and what becomes possible when every plot is treated as a living data set. He also explores how continuous modeling allows breeding programs to move beyond vague descriptors and toward measurable, repeatable insights that connect directly to on-farm outcomes.

This conversation explores:

• What continuous crop modeling is and how it works

• Why traditional field observations fall short over a full growing season

• How scale and repeated measurement change breeding decisions

• What “digital twins” of plots mean for selection and performance

• Why data, not hardware, is driving the next shift in breeding innovation As data-driven breeding moves from research into real-world programs, this discussion offers a clear look at how seeing the whole season is reshaping value for breeders, seed companies, and farmers, and why this may be only the beginning.