Centre for Regulatory Research and Innovation helping build support for innovation across Canada

A supportive regulatory framework is one of the most important elements in helping Canada’s ingredient manufacturing, food processing and bioproducts sector grow and thrive. Canada’s food regulations are highly regarded as some of the safest in the world, helping keep consumers healthy and informed through policies built on science. That doesn’t mean, however, that there isn’t room for improvement.

The Centre for Regulatory Research and Innovation (CRRI) was announced by Protein Industries Canada in December 2023, to build on the success of the Regulatory Centre of Excellence. The CRRI is focused on helping Canada’s plant-protein sector navigate existing food regulations while working toward regulatory modernization, particularly in the areas of labelling, nomenclature and protein validation. Currently, there are 13 projects approved under the CRRI’s mandate, various academic publications, and domestic and international engagement with government, industry, and academia. With its focus on science-driven data, this work has garnered the support and partnership of industry and government alike.

“The feedback has been extremely positive; when we talk about what the CRRI’s mandate is, how we’re approaching, creating and enabling the regulatory policy and environment for Canadian innovation domestically and abroad,” said Protein Industries Canada’s Director of the CRRI Chris Marinangeli. “The work that we’re doing is getting attention. We’re being brought into discussions beyond the scope of our direct work. We’re being brought into the work of others as an organization, as a Centre, that can provide thought that is important to discussions and our ecosystem, but maybe right now aren’t a direct priority.”

This is, in large part, because of the CRRI’s focus on research that helps provide the data regulators and governments need in order to review and, hopefully, justify regulatory changes. By maintaining this focus on robust data, the CRRI and its industry partners are ensuring Canadian regulations continue to prioritize food safety while supporting innovation. While this has meant facing challenges related to organization and unknown outcomes, the benefits of overcoming such challenges make the work more than worthwhile.

In particular, Marinangeli said, the CRRI’s work could help reduce regulatory bottlenecks currently faced by the sector, bring Canadian context to global nutrition science, and increase opportunities related to and the speed of innovation in the ingredient manufacturing, food processing and bioproducts space. In essence, it can help get more food options onto Canadian plates sooner.

“The early work that we’ve completed and that we’re building upon actually demonstrates some positive outcomes related to regulatory modernization,” Marinangeli said. “It demonstrates that asking the right question and pursuing the right research, can drive the datasets that perhaps will lead to regulatory modernization. From what I’ve seen from preliminary data, I’m very excited about what is coming and what the potential is.”

As the CRRI continues its regulatory modernization work, it’s expected the benefits to Canadians and Canada’s plant protein industry will only increase, helping strengthen Canada’s food supply chain while reaching the sector’s $25 billion potential.