Celebrating a Year of Progress

International markets are essential to growing Canada’s value-added agrifood sector. Our ingredient manufacturers and food processors are developing high-quality, nutritious, innovative products, and their potential benefit to Canadians extends beyond our own grocery store shelves.

To help these products fulfill their market opportunity, Protein Industries Canada launched a collaborative initiative with Innovative UK in 2023, focused on developing partnerships that spanned the regions to create new products for global benefit. The initiative saw significant advancement in 2024-25, with the partnership’s four projects officially launching between November 2024 and May 2025.

A wide range of products is expected to be commercialized because of the projects, starting with the ingredients that will become the base for a variety of new food products. From animal-free collagen, to lupin flour, to protein derived from sunflower and legumes, ingredients from Canadian innovators will be featured in new lines of meat alternatives, pet treats and pastries. All are being formulated with consumer demand in mind, with taste, texture and nutrition composition being of particular focus.

The launch of these new products is expected to not only help meet the growing global demand for diverse protein options, but also to help Canada increase its competitiveness in the agrifood market while strengthening its relationship with an important trade partner.

In the early months of 2025, Canada was faced with a new challenge: How to respond to tariffs put in place by the U.S. government. For Canada’s food and ingredient companies, these potential tariffs are a significant risk. The U.S. is the main market for many of Protein Industries Canada’s member companies, and the loss of the market would have significant impact on the long-term success of Canada’s ingredient sector. Protein Industries Canada responded quickly in an effort to help these companies stay competitive in the global market, launching the new Strengthening the Canadian Supply Chain Program.

This new program, launched in March 2025, is designed to help Canadian SMEs reformulate, scale and commercialize products that feature domestically produced ingredients, for the Canadian market. As these companies adjust their ingredient sourcing, bringing it home to Canada, they’re provided the opportunity to not only reduce their production costs, but also provide economic benefit to Canada through a stronger domestic food supply chain and increased market opportunity for Canadian crops.

The Strengthening the Canadian Supply Chain Program opened to project proposals at the end of March 2025, with projects expected to be approved and announced in the 2025-26 fiscal.

One of the biggest barriers Canada’s agrifood companies face is access to the capital they need to establish facilities and scale production lines. Protein Industries Canada has made it a priority to help connect our member companies with investors across the capital community—private, public, venture and angel—to help find the right fit for both sides of the entrepreneur-investor relationship. The result is funding partnerships that not only benefit the companies involved, but Canada’s full value-added agrifood sector.

Canada’s capital community showed a growing interest in agrifood investment throughout the 2024-25 fiscal. The Government of Canada, for example, showed interest in a number of Protein Industries Canada member companies, including through an investment into Lupin Platform that will support the company in opening its new processing facility in Swift Current, Sask. Louis Dreyfus Company, meanwhile, will be opening its facility in Yorkton, Sask., representing international companies’ desire to invest in the Canadian food and ingredient space while bringing new economic opportunity to rural communities.

Other Protein Industries Canada members, such as New School Foods and Three Farmers Foods, saw success through financing rounds. This includes New School Foods’ partnership with Inter IKEA, which will see the launch of the company’s plant-based salmon alternatives throughout IKEA stores in North America in the 2025-26 fiscal, helping the company scale to new production levels. And Three Farmers Foods’ investment partnerships with funders such as Farm Credit Canada have allowed the company to expand its production lines and market footprint, reaching new consumers and becoming a household healthy-snack name in Canada and the United States.

Positioning Canada as the partner of choice in plant-based food, feed, and ingredients

Canada has the potential to be a global leader of sustainable, high-quality plant-based food, feed and ingredients. Achieving this vision requires building strong relationships at home and around the world.

Over the past year, Protein Industries Canada deepened connections across key markets, including the Asia-Pacific region, the European Union, and the United States. At the same time, we worked to raise awareness among Canadian leaders of the strategic importance and economic opportunity of growing Canada’s domestic ingredient manufacturing sector.

Through one-on-one engagement and participation in major industry events, we showcased Canada’s unique value proposition as a reliable, innovative, and sustainable supplier of plant-based products.

2024–25 Global Engagement Highlights:

• Hosted Plant Forward 2024 in Toronto, welcoming international delegates from across the agri-food value chain.
• Spoke at Agri-Food Tech Expo Asia (AFTEA) on the future of plant-based innovation.
• Welcomed Nurasa, Singapore’s food innovation organization, and initiated a relationship to drive collaboration and mutual benefit.
• Participated in the Canada-in-Asia Conference, connecting with key stakeholders in Singapore.
• Spoke on a global collaboration panel at Bridge2Food in Minneapolis.
• Engaged stakeholders across Europe and North America at events in Germany, the UK, Singapore, and the U.S.
• Held targeted, high-level meetings with global industry leaders, Canadian elected officials, and federal departments.

By building and strengthening these connections, we’re helping Canada secure its place as a trusted global leader in the future of sustainable food.

Canada’s agrifood sector has the potential to bring economic prosperity to the country—creating new jobs, boosting our GDP and strengthening our domestic food supply chain. Getting there, however, takes a coordinated approach, not only to deploying actions, but also to raising awareness of the opportunity.

Protein Industries Canada’s podcast, Canada’s Agri-food Opportunity: The Road to $25 Billion, introduces listeners to the potential of value-added agriculture across the country, and how the ecosystem can come together to achieve it. Launched in April 2024, the first season featured a lineup of experts from across the sector, including ingredient manufacturers, food processors, researchers and investors.