How FGF Group is building a learning culture at 'a technology company that bakes'

At a food manufacturing company that employs thousands of workers across Canada and the United States, the last thing you might expect to find is a dedicated AI transformation team, proprietary machine-learning software, and a learning culture that rivals many technology firms.

But FGF Group – the Toronto-based baked goods producer behind some of Canada's most recognized supermarket staples – has long operated with a philosophy that sets it apart: “We're a technology company that bakes.”

It’s a phrase that Matthew Clarke, Vice-President of Learning and Development at FGF Group, says is fundamental to the company’s approach to production as well as developing its team members. He oversees L&D across FGF's Canadian and US facilities, where that mandate shapes every development program, promotion decision, and conversation that he has with senior leaders about where the business is heading.

“it's very much true that senior leadership really needs to embrace learning to have that disseminate through the organization – our co-founders are strong believers in personal and professional development, and they’re passionate about education,” says Clarke. “I'm in a fortunate role where learning and development is really being sought after, and I look at it as a push and a pull – I’m getting pulled all the time into how can we create a better experience.”

That pull from the top, he says, is the single most important ingredient for building a genuine learning culture.

Development plans replace performance reviews

With roughly 80 per cent of its workforce on manufacturing and plant floors, FGF faces the same operational tension familiar to many large Canadian employers: how do you invest in people development when those people need to be at their stations producing goods?

Clarke's answer has been to build learning into the workflow rather than pull workers away from it. For the company's corporate and support population – about 20 per cent of staff – FGF has replaced traditional performance reviews with what it calls development plans, he says. “That just shifts the focus on development – we want people learning and we want people to continuously grow and go through that process,” he says.

According to Clarke, FGF employs learning styles assessments to understand how individuals prefer to learn, and AI is then used to curate personalized learning pathways based on those styles, individual career aspirations, and business needs. This approach sits within a broader philosophy Clarke describes as “4Growth” – a cultural shorthand that communicates to every employee, regardless of role or seniority, that the status quo is never sufficient.

“Most people want to grow and learn and be successful,” says Clarke. “So if you provide the opportunities, the resources, and the time, most people step up and want to do that.”

FGF’s transformation into a tech-focused production company drives home the idea that the company is constantly evolving, says Clarke. “You need to have your skills and toolset really sharpened and be ready for success today, but also, what is that going to look like in three or four years with your role?”

For HR leaders across Canada navigating similar workforce challenges, the numbers behind FGF's retention story are worth noting. Clarke says the company had more than 800 internal promotions in the last few years alone – a figure he connects directly to the deliberate pipeline created by its development programs. “Growth helps with that and acquisitions help with those opportunities, and by providing people the learning to then make them a successful candidate to be promoted, that really helps with our retention numbers,” he says.

The 'Unleashing Your Potential' flagship

Clarke says at the centre of FGF's leadership development is a program called Unleashing Your Potential. Unlike conventional leadership training that ends with a certificate, this program is deliberately open-ended and participants enter after roughly six months of tenure while never formally leaving, according to Clarke.

“Once you're in the program, you're always in the program,” Clarke says. “It’s a cycle of lifelong learning while you’re at FGF – we call it homegrown talent and, as the business grows and opportunities become available, we want those to go internally.”

The program is built around what Clarke calls the three E's: education, experience, and exposure. Cross-functional collaboration and project-based learning are central to the experience component – a deliberate move away from classroom-only formats, he says. The underlying idea is what FGF terms the “teachable fit”: a belief that if a person has the right work ethic and the capacity to operate in a fast-paced environment characterized by “speed, change, and uncertainty,” the company can teach them the rest, according to Clarke.

“We believe we can teach you to be successful,” says Clarke. “Obviously you need to have education or specializations at certain levels, depending on the type of role, but ultimately we can train and support and teach you to be a really great leader.”

AI adoption, without the gap

When it comes to AI transformation, Clarke suggests HR and T&D leaders focus on matching the pace of their own organization, not the hype cycle. “Just understand where your business is at, understanding what the risk tolerance is – as much as we believe we're leaders in [transformation], there's nothing wrong with lagging in this area as well,” he says. “For me, it's always about building a business case for it – there's a lot of potential in learning and development in terms of just the general efficiencies and the starting points, but ultimately, we're just matching the pace of our organization, and I think that's really important.”

Clarke draws a clear distinction between shallow AI adoption – using tools to draft emails or streamline communication – and the kind of deep integration FGF is pursuing, which includes AI-driven workforce planning, real-time production monitoring, and automated root cause analysis on the shop floor. “ChatGPT, Copilot – that's the low-hanging fruit, that's the easy stuff to just help people be more productive,” he says. “But that's not how we're using AI – we're using AI to really shape how we look at workforce planning, career planning, how we create efficiencies, how we monitor our shop and plant floors to ensure that our food quality and safety is at its highest level.”

Listening as a leadership skill

When asked what has most shaped his approach to leadership, Clarke's answer is simple: the ability to listen.

“When I talk to other individuals within my organization, it's really that ability to listen and understand what their challenges are, and then being able to express how learning can support them to overcome those,” he says. “Where learning can be a strategic partner is taking in information and then coming back with recommendations that are thoughtful, intentional, and are easily understandable from the other side. Where I've seen challenges arise is when people come in believing they already have the answers before fully understanding the situation and the factors contributing to it.”

For Clarke, the L&D function earns its seat at the strategic table not by arriving with a pre-packaged solution, but by building relationships deep enough to understand the real pain points of the business – and then designing learning that speaks directly to those needs.