In this episode of Strong Source, we're joined by Jason McDonald, Director of Procurement & Commodity Risk Management at Sara Lee Frozen Bakery, where he oversees ingredient risk across grains, edible oils, sweeteners, cocoa and eggs. Jason explains what actually drew him into procurement: not the supplier relationships people assume define the job, but the commodity markets driving the costs underneath it. That curiosity is what led him into managing a crisis with no futures market to hedge against, avian flu and the U.S. egg supply. Throughout the conversation, Jason offers a grounded, practitioner's view on managing volatility, from linking supplier contracts to feed costs instead of spot egg prices, to exploring reformulation alternatives, including a pomegranate-based substitute the team tested when the cocoa market spiked.

In this episode of Strong Source, we're joined by Harold de Boer, mathematician and one of the founders of Transtrend, the Rotterdam-based systematic investment manager that grew out of commodity trading house Nidera in the late 1980s. Raised on a dairy farm, Harold takes us from his first encounter with futures markets, through the feed producers supplying his father's farm, to running one of the most diversified trend-following programs in the industry. Throughout the conversation, Harold goes against the stream with refreshingly different views on trading and markets, from why commodities are not an asset class to why being non-conformistic is a necessity in the Transtrend way of trading.

In this episode, we speak with Moritz Seibert and Moritz Heiden, founder of Takahe Capital, about quantitative trading, systematic investment strategies, and how data-driven approaches are used to navigate commodity markets. They share insights on model development, risk management, and the evolving role of quantitative investing in today's markets.