The agriculture sector is familiar with research and innovation from the field to the farm gate.
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Less well known is the need for innovation beyond the farm gate.
That’s where the Canadian Food Innovation Network (CFIN) has been filling a gap.
CFIN was launched about 18 months ago with the goal of funding innovation and commercialization in the food and beverage manufacturing sector and becoming the champion for food innovation in Canada.
Why it matters: Based on value of production, food and beverage processing is the second-largest manufacturing industry in Canada. In 2020, its revenue was estimated at $121 billion.
“This is post-farm gate to consumer, which is largely missed as an opportunity for funding and innovation support,” says CFIN CEO Joe Lake.
“We’re trying to put the emphasis on food and when we look at the different companies that we’ve been able to support, they’re ones that aren’t normally represented in the agri-food space traditionally.”
To date, 32 companies have received more than $11 million in funding through three CFIN programs: the Innovation Booster, the Food Innovation Challenge and Foodtech Next.
The Innovation Booster provides funding for small- or medium-sized enterprises to support food innovation and research. The Food Innovation Challenge encourages big picture collaboration in the sector to find solutions for specific opportunities, like cellular food, labour constraints, shelf-life extension and more.
FoodTech Next is the newest program, offering funding for early-stage Canadian tech firms that want to be part of the food sector, supporting efforts to demonstrate and pilot innovation in a commercial setting.
“The amount of interest for each call for proposals has been extraordinary, with 20 to 50 applications per call, so there’s a real appetite across the country to not just solve current problems, but also take on the opportunities of the future,” says Lake.
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CFIN has also put priority on building a Canadian food innovation community involving people from all sectors and backgrounds who are interested in the big topics facing the industry, like sustainability, food safety, robotics, artificial intelligence, plastics, robotics and supply chains.
The organization has 16 staff members across the country and was designed as a virtual organization to avoid building regional or sectoral silos. Its online portal YODL serves as the centralized hub for the network.
“We’ve put the people element in combination with the digital to circumvent the geographical size of Canada,” Lake says. “Unlike automotive or digital technology, food is not concentrated in one spot, it’s Canada-wide.”
The network funds innovations from the pilot to the commercial stage. Examples of funded projects include back-of-house robotics for the food service industry to deal with labour shortages, developing compostable fruit stickers, energy reclamation in coffee roasting equipment and extracting vitamin B from seaweed.
Gastronomous is one start-up that has received CFIN funding to support its vision of becoming a smart kitchen equipment supplier, from connected grills and fryers to fridges. This can help restaurants control over- or undercooking, for example, or get a better handle on ordering and supply chain logistics — all of which can help tackle food waste, says Kristian Tazbazian, co-founder and chief operating officer.
“The food service sector is struggling right now for many of the same reasons as factories,” Tazbazian explains.
“It’s about looking at a process or challenge and how can we efficiently and creatively and for a great price develop a next-generation solution.”
With the help of CFIN funding, Gastronomous will shortly begin testing new equipment and technology in select fast food outlets in the Greater Toronto Area.
“Canada is known globally as a primary producer of agricultural products, but we also want Canadian food innovation to get the attention it deserves and we’ve been able to fund a portfolio of strong projects that showcase this,” Lake says, adding that members of the agricultural community who are keen to stay on top of the latest food innovation trends are encouraged to sign up for a free membership.
