“The danger here might be that the sector might not live up to its potential,” said Nicholas Renzetti, research associate with Smart Property Institute, the group that wrote the report in partnership with the Future Skills Centre.

And that potential is enormous. Protein Industries Canada believes the plant-based protein sector could be contributing $25 billion annually to Canada’s gross domestic product by 2035.

“Manitoba alone wants to grow its protein sector by attracting $1.5 billion in investment and creating 1,550 jobs by 2025,” stated the report.

Major investments have already been made in the two prairie provinces.

Roquette opened the world’s largest pea processing plant in Portage la Prairie, Man., in 2021.

Cargill and Viterra have announced plans to build canola crushing facilities in Regina that will be operational by 2024.

Federated Co-operatives Ltd. and AGT Food and Ingredients are building a $2 billion canola crushing and biodiesel plant in the same city that will be completed by 2027.

Burcon NutraScience Corporation’s pilot protein ingredient plant in Winnipeg received funding in 2023.

But a survey of companies working in that space revealed that there are some significant hurdles to overcome for those plants to be successful.

“People are concerned that the persistent labour challenges might lead to a situation where the sector continues along but doesn’t expand to its full potential,” said Renzetti.

The case of Merit Functional Foods offers a cautionary tale along those lines, according to the report.

There were “sky-high expectations” when the company opened its 94,000 sq. foot processing plant in Winnipeg in 2021.

Two years later the firm declared bankruptcy despite receiving $116.5 million in federal and provincial funding.

“The company’s lack of success was attributed to factors ranging from the high costs of inputs to labour shortages to delays in new product development,” stated the report.

A survey by the Canadian Federation for Independent Businesses found that 63 percent of agri-food companies could not hire all the staff they needed.

“There is a lack of visibility and perceived attractiveness for food and beverage manufacturing careers,” stated the report.

Renzetti said that is odd given that it is the largest manufacturing sector in the country measured by employment and the second largest measured by sales.

It doesn’t help that wages paid in the food manufacturing sector are typically much lower than in competing sectors such as potash mining and oil and gas extraction.

Average pay in the food manufacturing sector was $21.20 per hour in 2020 compared to an average manufacturing wage of $30.36 per hour.

Another hurdle is that many food production facilities are in rural areas, which means there is a smaller talent pool to draw on and it is harder to convince newcomers to Canada to settle in those areas.

“We do think these are solvable challenges,” said Renzetti.

The first step is to create increased awareness of food manufacturing jobs starting at the educational institutes.

People training in information technology, engineering and data analysis might not be aware of these jobs.

One idea is to work with institutes to create job internships or to get them teaching specific technical skills unique to food manufacturing jobs.

Food manufacturers need to make better use of existing immigration programs, such as the Provincial Nominee Program, which he called a “standout” program.

The industry should also lobby hard to get plant-based protein manufacturing on the list of eligible industries for the federal Agri-Food Pilot program.

There needs to be better co-ordination and sharing of labour market data between provinces and with the federal government.

And there should be a wholistic approach to job creation that places an emphasis on quality-of-life aspects, such as providing adequate transportation, housing and child-care facilities to accompany the new job.

—Sean Pratt writes for the Western Producer from Saskatchewan.

The post Protein sector faces labour crunch: report appeared first on Alberta Farmer Express.

Lucent BioSciences says its product, called Soileos, drives an “on-demand” delivery of nutrients to plants while reducing farmers’ carbon footprint. And because it is made with cellulose, it is not water soluble and so the micronutrients bound to it don’t leach away.

The company has been testing the product on fields throughout Canada and the U.S. Midwest over the past year.

“The results of the field trials are outstanding,” said Michael Riedijk, Lucent’s president and CEO.

“It shows there are exciting opportunities for innovation in agriculture that combine sustainability with improved crop quality and yield.”

Soileos has attracted a couple of high-profile backers. Protein Industries Canada (the federally funded “supercluster”) awarded the company a $1.25-million grant last year to scale its operations while Regina pulse trader and ingredient maker AGT Foods and Ingredients has provided a cash contribution as well as supplying pea and lentil hulls.

Lucent BioSciences says small-plot research trials on 50 farms delivered impressive results — yield gains of up to 45 per cent for vegetables and up to 20 per cent on crops such as corn, canola, lentils and wheat.

This year, it is running 40 demonstration-scale trials with farmer partners using standard application equipment. Despite the drought, early results are encouraging, said Jason McNamee, the company’s co-founder and chief product officer.

He said the cellulose made from the hulls binds the micronutrients, keeping them in the soil and available to crops.

“Our product is essentially bioavailable micronutrients — which currently include iron, zinc and manganese — that are attached to cellulose in such a way that they’re bound too tightly to leach but not so tightly that the plant cannot get at them,” he said.

“The (microbial) community in the soil needs a source of carbon, which is what cellulose is. So we’re essentially feeding the community and the community does the work of transferring the nutrients to your crop.”

That said, micronutrients are a controversial area with many agronomists and soil experts saying farmers should proceed with caution before spending big bucks on them.

But Riedijk said the method used in Soileos can work for macronutrients and his goal is to develop one for nitrogen.

“What we really want to get to is a non-leaching, cellulose-bound nitrogen and we feel we can do that,” he said. “That’s still a few years out, but we have a fairly clear road map around that.”

It would be a win for both farmers and the environment if the Soileos process could be applied to macronutrients, said McNamee.

“With the current suite of conventional granular or liquid fertilizers, if the conditions aren’t optimal then it’s gone — you’ve thrown that money out the window,” he said. “They’re liquid soluble so… they’re getting leached out and are not available to your plants anymore.

“Our material is water insoluble so it’s going to stay in the soil. If it doesn’t get used up that year, which we expect it to, that’s fine. If you overapply our material it’s not going to harm your crop whereas I’d say if you did it with other (fertilizers) it would hurt the crop.”

Meanwhile, there’s renewed interest in micronutrients, said McNamee.

“In the past five to seven years we’ve seen a renewed or enhanced interest in what zinc and iron can do for a crop, or how can we apply manganese and at which time and with which sources and so forth,” he said.

Delivering them in a new way also holds a lot of promise, he said.

“A lot of producers use a micronutrient supplement of some sort but the current suite of (manufacturing) technologies is old, it was developed primarily before and during the Second World War,” he said. “There’s been no real innovation in that space until this and that’s actually one of the reasons we chose micronutrients as our first product.”

Soileos is currently available in powdered form and is sold in one-pound bags targeted for home and garden use. It can be incorporated into other fertilizers (its recommended application rate is 10 to 20 pounds per acre depending on soil tests).

However, the company has developed a pellet version that can be applied with the same kind of machinery used to apply granular fertilizer. The pellets have been used in trials this year.

“In the trials we’re doing this year in Alberta, we’re running the material through an air seeder going into the seed row, so it’s going into the furrow with the seed,” said McNamee.

“That’s different from most fertilizers which get side banded because of their salt content. Ours has no salt so it works better if we get it as close to the seed as possible.”

Riedijk said his company is in talks with some distributors with the hope of bringing it to market next year. It’s also looking at licensing its technology to other fertilizer makers.

“They may want to create a specific blend in their region for their soil type and we provide the product as an ingredient or we create a specific proprietary blend for the distributor so they can position in the market,” he said.

The post B.C. startup company says it’s found a better way to deliver fertilizer appeared first on Alberta Farmer Express.

Protein Industries Canada, one of five federally backed research and innovation superclusters, is putting in $4 million to commercialize plant protein processing technology developed by Botaneco Inc.

The company will work with the Canadian arm of crop chemical and seed firm Corteva and Alberta organic hemp producer Rowland Farms on the project, which will also leverage another $4 million from industry.

“The Protein Industries Canada co-investment will allow us to expand our internal research capacity and contribute to the building of a Prairie proteins ecosystem with our consortia partners and key public research institutions,” Botaneco CEO James Szarko said in a release. “This investment will greatly accelerate our development timelines; opening new, high-value markets for Canadian oilseed crops.”

The five-year-old oilseed processor developed a process that preserves small “vessels” in oilseeds (called oleosomes) that have functional properties. Its process also doesn’t denature the proteins.

This makes the processed oil more valuable, Szarko said in an interview earlier this year.

“We’re focused on the whole seed — getting value out of every piece of the seed at a high-value basis. So all of a sudden, we turn what would be 80 or 90 cents a kilo to $5 to $25 a kilo,” he said. “We end up with a value proposition that’s at least five times the potential revenue from one little oilseed.”

The company initially focused on the aquaculture sector but there are a range of uses for its ingredients, said Szarko, whose company employs about 35 people at its Calgary manufacturing facility and a sales office in New Jersey.

It processes about 2,000 tonnes of seed annually, but is planning to build a facility able to process 50,000 tonnes and that could be scaled up to 300,000 tonnes, Szarko said in January.

Protein Industries Canada is a “pan-Prairie” industry-led alliance of more than 120 private sector companies, schools and other stakeholders. It was set up to develop “the potential of plant-based proteins from crops such as canola, pulses, grains, hemp and flax.” It is one of five superclusters chosen last year to split a five-year, $950-million funding commitment from Ottawa’s Innovation Superclusters Program.

Protein Industries Canada is receiving almost $153 million and its first investment is “a significant milestone,” said CEO Bill Greuel.

“We are thrilled to have worked with the consortium and co-invest into a project that will drive innovative processing and bring new opportunities for feed and food manufacturers,” he said in a release.

Botaneco products so far have been mostly safflower based and mainly for the personal care sector, including Hydresia oleosomes for skin care; CapSol, for sun protection; and Karmyn proteins for use in hair- and skin-care products and cleansers.

The company is described as “best-in-class” by Tyler Groeneveld, North American commercial grains and oils leader at Corteva.

“We are excited about new, high-value markets and unlocking untapped value in feed, food and consumer care, providing a model in Canadian agriculture for value-chain partnerships,” Groeneveld said.

(David Dzisiak, who was commercial grains and oils leader at Dow AgroSciences — Corteva’s predecessor company — until March is now the chief operating officer for Botaneco.)

Protein Industries Canada’s first call for proposals closed at the end of June, with a second call in September. — With files from Glacier FarmMedia

The post Protein supercluster backs Calgary oilseed processor appeared first on Alberta Farmer Express.

“From a processing perspective, this is a growing industry in Canada — we’ve got 7,000 food processors,” Bill Greuel told attendees at the recent Bridge2Food Plant-Based Food Summit.

But the processing sector is just starting to take off in Western Canada, he said.

“We’re just on the cusp of transitioning out of what we do today, which is for the most part, shipping our raw commodities to value-added processing for the food manufacturing sector,” he said. “It’s going to take a lot of investment. It’s going to take some time, but I have no doubt that we will emerge as a leader in food processing and ingredient supplies.”

The federal government is giving $153 million to Greuel’s organization, a so-called ‘supercluster.’ The goal is to create a concentration of plant-processing industries akin to an ag version of Silicon Valley. With matching industry funds, Saskatoon-headquartered Protein Industries Canada expects to see $300 million invested in value-added plant-based protein processing and market development.

About 30 per cent of crops grown in Alberta, Saskatchewan and Manitoba are high-protein crops, said Greuel.

“At the end of the day, that’s 14 million tonnes of plant-based protein,” he said, noting Canada is one of five jurisdictions in the world that is a net exporter of food.

He pointed to canola, saying if there were varieties with more protein and less fibre, the crop sector could expand sales into aquaculture, pet food and swine production. Value-added processing of peas, lentils and chickpeas also offer rich possibilities — and would provide a more lucrative market than exporting raw production. (The Prairies export 6.5 million tonnes of pulses annually.)

Western Canada’s land base, knowledgeable producers and good productivity will allow it to grow at a range and scale that few other regions can match, said Greuel.

“The ability to scale up new crops over a short period of time — this is something that we can do in Western Canada that few other jurisdictions can do globally,” he said.

There are also promising opportunities for crops such as flax, camelina and oats.

In addition to the ability to produce large volumes of high-quality crops, Western Canada has good infrastructure when it comes to research and development, and a good international reputation, he said.

“Canada is a trade-friendly nation,” said Greuel. “We export 95 per cent of what we produce and that won’t change if we’re part of the value-added sector.

“Our role is to help position Canada as a global leader in plant-based food, feed and plant-based co-products. We want to contribute to Canada’s economic growth. We want to act as a catalyst to support innovation and collaboration and we have a long-term goal to transform Canada’s agriculture and food processing sectors from where we are today to what we can become.”

Breeding new varieties with the right genetics for both protein content and quality will be key, he added.

“For instance, we’ll be considering investments in decreasing fibre content, and increasing fibre concentration in canola. We’ll be considering investment around increasing protein content in yellow peas and investments at the end of the value chain that make processing more efficient.”

Western Canada has historically underinvested in processing technology but that may soon start to change.

Protein Industries Canada is currently in the midst of its first call for proposals — with $40 million in funding available. (Successful bidders will have to at least match any money they receive.) A second call for proposals will take place this fall.

“Technology priorities will be the majority of investments that we want to make,” said Greuel. “This will be 80 to 85 per cent of the investments that we want to make.”

His organization also wants to help small- and medium-size enterprises grow, he added.

“We want to make sure this is inclusive growth. We’re hoping to see how we ensure that First Nations are benefiting from the investments that we’re making.”

It will also be working with post-secondary institutions to make sure that the next level of graduates will be able to take advantage of opportunities in the plant-based protein sector. Protein Industries Canada will also advocate for regulatory changes that allow companies with innovative ideas to act on them quickly.

“We want a regulatory environment aligned with advancements in innovation,” said Greuel. “We’re really working to create a long-term sustainable change in the industry.”

But change won’t happen overnight, he emphasized.

“Our work will not be done in four years. I don’t think our work at Protein Industries Canada will be transformational in four years. We’re taking the first steps to grow this industry in Western Canada.”

The post Protein supercluster aims to transform food processing in Western Canada appeared first on Alberta Farmer Express.

“Two and a half years ago, we got very close, and then the pulse market went to hell,” said Chivilo, president of W.A. Grain and Pulse Solutions.

“So we put things on hold because of a lack of capital after 18 months of horrible markets. But we’re having a half-decent year this year, so we’re looking at it again, especially with all the work going on in the protein supercluster.”

Pulse processing on the Prairies has been the ‘will they or won’t they?’ story of the past decade for growers of peas, lentils, beans, and chickpeas.

But despite increasing consumer demand for these plant-based proteins and relatively strong growth in pulse acres across Western Canada (pulse acres doubled in Alberta between 2008 and 2017) investment in domestic processing has not kept pace.

Momentum seemed to be picking up toward the end of 2017, when France plant-protein giant Roquette, which has annual sales of $5 billion, began construction on a $400-million pea-processing plant in Portage la Prairie, Man. Shortly after, Academy Award-winning director James Cameron announced another multimillion-dollar processing plant in Vanscoy, Sask. The Vanscoy plant, Verdient Foods, came online last year, while Roquette has pushed its expected opening date to 2020.

But the drive to increase pulse-processing capacity in Canada has slowed since then, and today, few of the rumblings about new pulse fractioning plants in the Prairie provinces have come to fruition.

“There have been investments made in Saskatchewan and in Manitoba, and we’ve had a lot of interest from companies that are seeking to make investments in other provinces as well,” said Bill Greuel, chief executive officer of Protein Industries Canada.

His organization is one of five ‘superclusters’ that Ottawa is bankrolling in hopes of fostering new economic engines in
the decades to come. Protein Industries Canada has been given $150 million and expects that money will leverage another $400 million in industry investment.

“But this is a very long-term game,” said Greuel. “Some of the facilities that are being constructed are in the hundreds of millions of dollars — these are large investments, and they will take time.”

The slowdown in momentum could also be a result of a shift in acres, he added.

“With the export of pulses to India right now and the tariffs that its government has placed on Canadian imports, farmers have probably slowed their production,” said Greuel. “That’s one of the risk factors that companies are considering when they’re making large investments in processing.”

Call for proposals

But for smaller operators like Chivilo, it all comes down to money.

“We’re a small company compared to the other ones that are investing in processing,” he said. “The Canadian pulse companies that still exist are capital strapped because we don’t have the deep pockets of the big guys.”

As a result, Chivilo has had to scale back his plans for the Bowden plant. Initially set to open last year, the new plant was expected to process up to 60,000 tonnes of lentils and peas a year and would include a lentil and pea splitting line and flour mill, dry fractioning line, and wet fractioning line.

Now, the proposed plant will process between 10,000 to 15,000 tonnes of peas and fababeans as a startup volume when it opens (hopefully within the next two years), with the capacity to double that volume in time.

Chivilo has also made his process more efficient. After conducting experiments at the Leduc Food Processing Development Centre last summer, Chivilo scrapped the typical wet and dry fractioning processes he had planned to use in favour of something that would work better in his system.

Now, he’s “taking up the torch again,” re-engineering his plans and working with equipment suppliers to ensure they can duplicate the process on a larger scale. And he’s hoping the protein supercluster will help with that.

“The protein supercluster has spurred us,” said Chivilo. “The investment from Protein Industries Canada has been a big driver in getting back in the saddle to do this now that we’ve gone through the worst of times.”

Last month, Protein Industries Canada announced its first call for proposals, allocating $40 million in co-investment funding for private sector Canadian companies working with plant-based proteins.

“We made this funding available to help new investments in science and innovation so that we can create new products and find new uses for old products,” said Greuel. “Any private sector company in Canada that works in the value-added processing sector or the agriculture sector that wants to do work related to the growth of the plant protein sector is eligible to apply.”

There are a few other eligibility criteria, however. Protein Industries Canada will match investment dollars by up to 50 per cent, with the remainder coming from the private sector. All applicants must be for-profit Canadian businesses that have partnered with other private sector companies to improve collaboration.

Expressions of interest for this first round of funding are due on June 28, with a second call for proposals planned for Sept. 1. (More details can be found at proteinindustriescanada.ca.)

“There’s a lot of potential that we can unlock if we can get pulse processing on the Prairies and really take advantage of the raw commodities we’re producing,” said Greuel, adding Canada produces about 12 million tonnes of plant-based protein a year.

“If you look at the growth in global demand, we can’t satisfy that in Canada. There’s a huge opportunity for us on the Prairies.

“Honestly, the sky’s the limit for plant-based proteins.”

Chivilo agrees.

“Even when all of the fractioning plants get going full speed, there’s still going to be protein shortages,” he said.

“The demand for plant protein has really been understated. The money is available. The hype is out there. The time is now.”

The post Prairie pulse processing still in next-year country appeared first on Alberta Farmer Express.

The consortium of more than 120 businesses, farm groups, universities, and other industry players is one of five groups sharing $950 million over five years from the Federal Innovation Supercluster Initiative.

Protein Industries Canada said in a news release it will take a few months to finalize the “accountability framework” with the government and its plans for specific projects. “It will likely be late summer before we are in a position to approve any projects,” the group said.

The post Late-summer launch for protein projects appeared first on Alberta Farmer Express.

Innovation, Science and Economic Development Minister Navdeep Bains on Thursday announced Protein Industries Canada (PIC) as one of five “superclusters” which will receive a piece of a five-year, $950 million federal funding commitment from the Innovation Superclusters Program.

PIC’s share of the federal support isn’t yet finalized — spokespeople for the group see an amount somewhere between $150 million and $200 million — but they expect it to supplement roughly $400 million in support the group has already secured from its members in cash, in-kind commitments and venture capital.

Over the next six weeks, PIC acting president Ron Styles said in a release, the group will work with the federal ISED department to “finalize a funding agreement that together with our proposal will form the framework for implementation going forward.”

PIC, which bills itself as a “pan-Prairie” industry-led alliance of over 120 private-sector companies, schools and other stakeholders across the West and elsewhere, is focused on “fully developing the potential of plant-based proteins from crops such as canola, pulses, grains, hemp and flax.”

“This has huge implications for the western Canadian economy,” PIC chairman Frank Hart said Thursday. “Farmers, service companies, value-added processors, academic institutions, consumers and, through spinoff benefits, everyone on the Prairies and throughout Canada will stand to benefit.”

PIC’s goal, the government said, is to use plant genomics and novel processing technology to increase the value of the crops “coveted” in high-growth foreign markets such as China and India — and to feed demand in North America and Europe for plant-based meat alternatives and new food products.

From the farmer’s perspective, PIC board member Ray Bouchard, of Manitoba’s Enns Bros., sees gains if Canada can become recognized as a plant protein leader — in terms of expanded domestic and export markets, increased crop processing, increased income from crops grown and increases in sustainable productivity.

PIC has laid out four pillars for its efforts over the next five years, including crop breeding, crop production, value-added processing and export development. Shares of funding will be allocated to each pillar, though not necessarily equally, said Hart, the chief risk officer for Regina-based Greystone Managed Investments.

The cluster doesn’t plan to focus strictly on crops which have the most visible protein profiles, such as pulses, Hart said, noting “a lot of ‘hidden’ protein” in crops such as canola.

For example, he said, much of the protein in canola seed remains in the meal and goes to livestock feed, but if it’s possible to separate the seed’s hull from its contents, there may be ways to extract more of its protein for food use.

Across PIC’s four pillars, it’s expected that new operations and facilities will need to be set up to develop new technologies, including software to handle the data required on the crop production side.

Immediate tasks at hand include setting up a headquarters for PIC, along with offices across the Prairie region, Bouchard said Thursday. As a “convening” organization, he said Thursday, “we need boots on the ground in all three (provincial) jurisdictions.”

Bouchard came to the group from the Manitoba-based EMILI (Enterprise Machine Intelligence and Learning Initiative) supercluster proposal that merged last November into PIC, ahead of the Saskatchewan-based group’s second-phase application to the Innovation Superclusters Program.

Once an agreement is in place for the federal contribution, he said, “I think we’ll start seeing projects funded by the fall.”

For Prairie residents, Bouchard and Hart said, the PIC projects may eventually lead to new employment opportunities across the region as facilities such as pulse fractionation plants are built close to their crop base — and for consumers generally, the initiative is expected to ultimately lead to “lots of interesting food choices.”

Commercial activity

Beyond the 120-odd PIC- and EMILI-affiliated companies and organizations, Bouchard said the supercluster also plans to foster collaborations including companies and groups which weren’t in on its initial bid.

PIC players so far include the Universities of Saskatchewan, Manitoba, Alberta, British Columbia, Regina, Lethbridge, Guelph, Toronto and Ottawa; companies such as ADM, Canadian National Railway, Cargill, DowDuPont, G3 Canada, Mosaic Co., Parmalat and Richardson International; and various national and provincial crop commodity groups and federal, provincial and municipal agencies.

Looking beyond the five-year federal funding commitment, Bouchard said, the PIC board hopes that within three years it will have its plan in place for years 5 to 10, to fund and maintain these collaborations.

The federal supercluster initiative was launched last year as a challenge to Canadian businesses “of all sizes” to collaborate with institutions on “bold and ambitious strategies that would transform regional economies and develop job-creating superclusters of innovation, like Silicon Valley.”

From an industry perspective, Bouchard said, the supercluster model “has really kind of forced a lot of dialogue” between various stakeholders, of various sizes, as to how they can all benefit.

Furthermore, he said, where research clusters have mainly operated at the university level, the government has moved to make the supercluster model business-led, working in tandem with schools and research agencies, which “may change the way we partner going forward.”

Once it made the federal government’s shortlist of nine supercluster proposals, the combined PIC and EMILI group was “cautiously optimistic” that it would make the final cut, Bouchard said.

Ottawa, he noted, has been looking for ways to implement the recommendations of the Barton report released in February by the government’s Advisory Council on Economic Growth. That report pegged agriculture as a key sector with substantial growth potential.

PIC cites a study estimating its work could generate over $700 million in new commercial activity and “billions” in incremental gross domestic product over the next 10 years, creating about 4,700 new jobs.

Among the nine finalists, Canada’s ag sector was also represented by the Smart Agri-Food Supercluster (SASC), an Alberta-based, “pan-Canadian” group focused on sustainable innovations in food production. — AGCanada.com Network

The post Plant protein supercluster makes cut for federal funding appeared first on Alberta Farmer Express.