Investing in Canadian processing to secure our supply chain

In the past two years, the Canadian food supply chain experienced more disruption than it has in previous decades. First COVID-19 and now the flooding in British Columbia.

While both are tragic events, they are very different. However, both have had the same impact on our food supply chain — demonstrating its fragility and leaving Canadians staring at empty grocery store shelves.

For a country that is one of the largest growers of food in the world — Canada is the fifth largest exporter of food in the world — we are much too dependent on food imports. In 1992, Canada imported 15 per cent of our total food value. By 2020, that number had grown to 31 per cent.

In the past week there has been many reasons highlighted as to why our supply chain is prone to disruption, including transportation challenges – our dependency on road, rail and sea; the impacts of climate change, the loss of local production, a shortage of labour, and more.

As each contributing problem has been brought , so have possible solutions: increasing local production; looking at new and different forms of production, such as greenhouses and vertical growing; embracing regenerative agricultural practices; and more.

While all of these are part of the potential solution, not any one of them on their own will ensure a continued supply of healthy and diverse food options for Canadians.

Canada’s agrifood sector is an important part of our economy, and, over the years, much progress has been made in improving the quantity and quality of what we grow – from advancements in seed genetics, to improved production practices. However, historically in Canada, there has been an area that is often overlooked and under-funded: ingredient production and value-added processing.

This brings me back to the stat I shared at the beginning of the article – how can a country that produces so much, be so reliant on food imports?

Some of the answer is certainly our northern climate, but a large factor is that we do not have the capacity to turn our high-quality crops into the necessary quantity of ingredients and food products. All too often we ship commodities as a bulk seed, only then to import back ingredients or finished food products.

The challenges with this approach — food miles, additional emissions related to transportation, the reliance on the global transportation system, being at the mercy of trade disruptions and more – are obvious.

So then, why do we still do it?

That answer is a complex one. Canada is very good at growing and shipping raw commodities – it’s largely what has driven our success. Historically, countries like China can process cheaper or there is a need for a large infrastructure investment to support increased processing.

These are all reasons that are usually volleyed about. And they’re all legitimate.

But if we truly want to ensure a secure food supply chain for Canada, we must invest and advance our ingredient and value-added processing capacity. This needs to be a part of the solution when discussing the future of Canada’s agrifood sector and our food systems. All of these challenges can be overcome. And when we do – Canada will experience a multitude of benefits.

Protein Industries Canada has recently done some work to better understand the opportunity of increasing ingredient processing and food production in Canada — and it’s considerable.

We believe that by 2035, Canada can be the suppler for 10 per cent of all plant-based ingredients in the world. This translates to a $25 billion contribution to our GDP and the employment of more than 17,000 people.

More importantly, it will help ensure that Canadians from coast-to-coast-to-coast will have secure access to food. By increasing our capacity for ingredient and food processing, we will process what we grow, removing many of the outside resources we are currently dependent on.

It will also help make food production more sustainable – we would remove thousands of food miles and the emissions related to transportation. And it would mean that what we do sell, is sold at a higher value.

Protein Industries Canada and our members are committed to growing Canada’s plant-based food, feed and ingredient ecosystem. Over the past three years we have invested more than $450 million into growing Canada’s domestic processing capacity – this has helped support the development of new products, attract and train employees, develop centres of excellences and, most importantly, create a cluster of like-minded businesses – from start-ups to SMEs to multi-nationals. Together we are creating a cycle of innovation and positioning Canada as a magnet for investment and partnership.

The time to secure this opportunity is now. We must continue to build on the momentum we have.