We recently worked with a food company pushing new products to market. The work was intense, but that wasn’t the issue. What was killing momentum? No one was clear on who owned what.
People were double-working, making assumptions, stepping on toes. Some team members shut down. Others burned out. Not because they weren’t capable—but because expectations were blurry, priorities kept shifting, and the system couldn’t support the speed of the strategy.
Even more telling? Three-quarters of the team...
A reflection from Tia Glave, Catalyst Co-Founder
The food industry is at a crossroads.
With shrinking labor pools, rising costs, and constant pressure to do more with less, 2026 isn’t going to reward survival-mode leadership.
It will demand something better.
Food leaders who create trust on purpose. Who think beyond their own to-do lists. Who build cultures where people and performance grow together.
That kind of leadership doesn’t just happen. It happens through leadership systems that...
With shifting labor dynamics, shrinking resources, and a noticeable drop in team engagement, food leaders are facing the constant pressure to do more with less. The chaos isn’t slowing down—and neither are the expectations.
When the whirlwind picks up, leaders must get intentional about taking care of themselves.
“If you can’t take care of yourself, you can’t take care of others.”
– Jill Stuber
In this week’s episode of Real Talk with Tia & Jill, we dive into 3 practical shifts to stay ground...
The moments you’re most under pressure are the moments your team and those around you remember most.
Not the calm days. Not the wins.
But the heat. The urgency. The curveballs.
That’s when leadership patterns get revealed—or rewritten.
And in food and manufacturing environments, pressure isn’t the exception. It’s the rhythm.
When firefighting becomes your leadership style
One of our clients—an operations leader in a national food brand—described their team dynamic like this:
“We’re so used to...
