The road to $25 billion

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This article was published 23/09/2021 (1447 days ago), so information in it may no longer be current.

The global market for plant-based foods is growing dramatically with various estimates suggesting it could be worth somewhere around $250 billion by 2035 and there’s now a concerted effort to make sure Canada will get its fair share.

Protein Industries Canada (PIC), the federally funded supercluster, along with input from industry representatives across the country, has established a goal for Canadian operations in the sector to reach revenues of $25 billion by 2035.

At its annual meeting in Regina on Wednesday, PIC released a report that lays out a road map to reach that goal, “The road to $25 billion for Canada’s plant-based food, feed and ingredient ecosystem.”

Bill Greuel, the chief executive officer of PIC, said, “It is a moon shot but I do believe it is infinitely doable in Canada.”

The road map focuses on the need to innovate, then to be able to scale up production and for it all to be sustainable to ensure ongoing prosperity.

Estimates are that the current size of the Canadian value added plant-based food and ingredient market, excluding canola processing and wheat milling, ranges between $2.5 and $3.0 billion in annual value comprised of the domestic retail sales of plant-based foods and production of high-value ingredients that are destined for human consumption.

In Manitoba, the Roquette pea protein plant and the Merit Functional Foods pea and canola protein operations have both begun operations. Greuel and others say they are great examples of the kind of enterprise that will allow that kind of growth to occur. Greuel said he is aware of other similar enterprises getting ready to scale up.

Murad Al-Katib, the CEO of AGT Foods out of Regina, who is on PIC’s advisory committee for this campaign, said the industry has a lot going for it, but there are a lot of other places in the world that also see the same opportunity.

‘It is a moon shot but I do believe it is infinitely doable in Canada.’– Bill Greuel (above), the chief executive officer of Protein Industries Canada

“This road map can function as an aspirational foundation,” he said.

Martin Scanlon, the dean of the faculty of agriculture at the University of Manitoba, who is also part of the advisory committee, said there is no denying there is an awful lot of interest in plant-based alternatives to dairy and meat and Canada has such huge reserves of arable land and expertise in producing the raw commodities that it has as much of a chance to capitalize on the opportunity as any other country.

He believes recent developments, such as those occurring at Roquette and Merit, are generating a buzz.

“It is exciting,” he said, “I have been here for 30 odd years and the kind of value-added operations that have arisen in the last five years, I have not seen it in the previous 30 years.”

The road map envisions the creation of new technologies and new products that have not even been imagined before. It will take an accelerated rate of innovation and it will also require investment of capital on a scale that the industry is not necessarily used to.

Greuel said there is greater interest from the capital markets, but that the industry is still not viewed as being highly innovative like aerospace or the digital technology industries.

It will also require creativity and support, both financial and from the regulatory area, from government.

Greuel said, “I have been knocking around the ag industry for 25 plus years and I would say now more than ever there is recognition from both elected politicians and senior government officials that agricultural and food processing are growth industries for Canada.”

The report makes clear there is plenty of international competition in the space and that there is a window of opportunity that exists now.

“There is urgency for Canada to compete for investment, to secure ingredient processing capacity and to lay the foundation for a globally competitive plant-based foods manufacturing sector,” the report states. “Value chains are being built around the globe. Over the next decade, ingredient processing infrastructure will be established to meet the global demand for plant-based food consumption. This capital-intensive infrastructure is immobile, and where it’s built will determine the trade flows of commodities.”

martin.cash@freepress.mb.ca