Making progress on the Road to $25 Billion

When Protein Industries Canada released its updated The Road to $25 Billion in November 2023, it wasn’t aiming to benefit one sector. By outlining a path to growth and increased profitability for Canada’s ingredient, food and bioproducts sector, the Roadmap creates a ripple effect of benefits that, given the opportunity, can benefit all Canadians.

Achieving those benefits, however, requires a concentrated effort from the full value chain—a journey that has begun and that we need to continue. Exactly what this work looks like varies according to where an organization lands on the value chain, but one of the most important steps is ensuring sufficient capital is in place to support the sector.

“Funding for capital infrastructure in the ingredient manufacturing space is very tight, and we don’t have all the mechanisms in Canada, necessarily, to support that,” Protein Industries Canada CEO Bill Greuel said. “So working with Canada’s federal lending institutions and Canada’s federal programs, like the Canada Infrastructure Bank and the Canada Growth Fund, are really critical elements to incentivize more private sector capital.”

This work goes hand-in-hand with ensuring there’s a wider understanding of Canada’s $25 billion opportunity across not only the sector, but the organizations that can help support it. Greuel cited the capital community as a particularly important audience, to help boost investment into the sector. One of Protein Industries Canada’s top priorities, however, is ensuring industry understands how best to access and utilize federal programming.

“What we need is to ensure that the federal programs that already exist are working for the plant-based food and ingredients sector,” Greuel said. “There is work that industry can do to make sure that they’re investment-ready for things like Farm Credit Canada or the Strategic Innovation Fund or the Canada Growth Fund. So thinking about how they’re positioning their investments relative to the clean-tech sector in Canada is important because that’s where the investment is flowing.”

The continued innovation and investment across industry will be complemented by Protein Industries Canada’s own work, including that completed under the Centre for Regulatory Research and Innovation. Built on rigorous scientific information, the Centre has been helping to address knowledge gaps related to regulatory modernization, including through research and development projects that provide thorough data to regulators. This move toward regulatory modernization, alongside Protein Industries Canada’s other work, is expected to help the sector grow to meet its full potential.

In its short lifetime, The Road to $25 Billion has had a significant impact on Canada’s plant-based ingredient, food and bioproducts sector. And that impact is only expected to grow as Canada continues to move toward meeting its $25 billion potential, bringing benefit to families across the country.