In June, Prime Minister Justin Trudeau announced almost $100 million of funding towards the new Winnipeg facility for Merit Functional Foods, a company that was established last year in a joint venture by Burcon NutraScience and three veteran food industry executives. The new company’s high-tech, 94,000-sq.ft. facility is expected to be functional by the end of 2020, becoming the first …

New report points to 10 trends expected to disrupt the global food and beverage industry.

By Natasha Questel, VP of Marketing at Earth’s Own This year saw some big changes to the way Canadians think about food. Canada’s 2019 Food Guide sidelined milk and dairy to focus more on eating a diet rich in fruits, vegetables and protein, and Canadians stood up and said that they wanted to eat more plants. While this may be …

Background: Sol Cuisine was established in 1996 by Dror Balshine, and pioneered plant-based protein foods in Canada by tapping into a unique and mostly untouched market at that time. Ingredients are sourced locally wherever possible, and all products are 100 per cent plant-based, Non-GMO Project Verified, kosher and halal, produced at its 35,000-sq.ft. manufacturing facility in Ontario, which has SQF …

Simon Fraser University (SFU), BarrelWise Technologies and Technology Brewing Corporation have each received $50,000 from B.C.’s Agritech Innovation Challenge for leading-edge projects that will help battle the varroa mite in bees, improve winemaking processes and develop robots for mushroom harvesting. Researchers at SFU are exploring how a non-toxic chemical compound can target the varroa mite, a pest that can cause …

Growing consumer demand for plant-based foods is fuelling a partnership between Compass Group Canada, a leading food service provider, and Copper Branch, the world’s largest vegan restaurant chain. The partnership allows for the opening of up to 50 locations over 10 years to improve the availability of vegan options in hospitals and on campuses across Canada, with five planned openings …

Egg Farmers of Canada and McDonald’s are putting consumer trust on the balance sheet. In July, the restaurant chain joined forces with Egg Farmers of Canada to have its egg menu items stamped with the farmers’ seal of approval. Until September, McDonald’s ads include the Egg Quality Assurance (EQA) certification mark for its McMuffin sandwiches.  “The EQA program is the …

By Kathleen Rogers and Dr. Shenggen Fan The way we produce, consume and discard food is no longer sustainable. That much is clear from the newly released UN climate change report, which warns that we must rethink how we produce our food – and quickly – to avoid the most devastating impacts of global food production, including massive deforestation, staggering biodiversity …