Future of Food
The Benefits of Teaming Up with Turnkey Partners in Food and Bev
Food and beverage is big business. Canada’s food and beverage processing industry is the second largest manufacturing industry in the country, with $117.8 billion in sales of manufactured goods in 2019. The industry accounts for 17 per cent of total manufacturing sales and two per cent of the national GDP. It’s the largest manufacturing employer, providing employment to 290,000 Canadians.
It’s also an industry that’s continually evolving. E-commerce has changed the nature of the facilities and services needed in the food industry, while technological advances have allowed for a new level of automation in food production facilities. The demand for food is greater than ever, and logistics have required cold storage to be present in more areas to service a growing and diverse population. Finally, labour shortages in the industry have forced production facility owners to upgrade their facility requirements rapidly.
Food industry players need expertise in designing, building, and outfitting existing or new facilities — and that’s where organizations like Maple Reinders
An affinity for complex projects
Maple Reinders is a full-service construction services provider that specializes in industrial, commercial, and institutional building along with civil and environmental construction, which includes things like water/wastewater treatment plants, composting, energy-from-waste, biogas, cogeneration, and mining.
With over 50 years’ experience, the company has offices Canada-wide and has completed over 2,900 projects coast-tocoast. Without a doubt, Maple Reinders has grown to become one of the most respected, highly adaptable, and trusted construction firms in Canada today.
“We tend to gravitate to more complex projects,” says Ken Kamminga, National Director of Business
Development at Maple Reinders. “We identified early on that the food and bev industry provides us with plenty of opportunities to solve problems for our clients. This separates us from much of the pack in the construction industry.”
A turnkey solution provider
Not all builders have the experience and expertise to address innovation, automation, and outfitting in an industry as
looking for a partner, and we’re that turnkey partner,” says Joseph Sabourin, Project Director for the Food and Beverage Sector at Maple Reinders. “What sets us apart is our ability to provide everything under one roof, from the early design program to assessing needs to working through the conceptual design.”
No matter the challenge — from supply chain issues to labour shortages — Maple Reinders has the innovation and technologies to respond to a myriad of food and beverage industry issues. And as a company with a civil/environmental line of business, Maple Reinders is uniquely qualified to serve the food industry, having an understanding of the whole lifecycle of foods, packaging, and organics — including experience with organic waste composting and energy from waste, such as at the Calgary Compost Facility and the Edmonton Anaerobic Digestion Facility.
Other notable projects and areas of expertise in Maple Reinders’ portfolio include harvesting field produce (VegPro Chinook Lettuce Farm and Processing Facility); logistics, distribution, and cold storage
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Why Canada Needs A Regulatory Framework that Supports Sustainable Agricultural Innovation
A key player in Canada’s food policy space, GIFS advocates for a regulatory environment that encourages – rather than stifles – innovation.
Anne Papmehl
Food security is essential to achieving a secure, stable, and peaceful world. Lack of access to good, nutritious food contributes not only to illness and disease among the population but can also trigger major political instability and conflict. “In effect, food insecurity is global insecurity,” says Dr. Steven Webb, Chief Executive Officer of the Global Institute for Food Security (GIFS) at the University of Saskatchewan, an industry-government and academic partnership that focuses on policies that promote sustainable solutions to global food production challenges.
To improve exports on global stage, domestic policy changes needed
A rapidly expanding population and limited resources such as land, water, and nutrients — coupled with other issues like natural disasters and political conflicts – make it more challenging than ever to ensure an ample, secure, and sustainable food supply.
Fortunately, this is an area where Canada, as one of just a handful of nations that are net exporters of food, has a major competitive advantage. Not only does our agriculture and food sector offer solutions to many of these daunting challenges, but it does so in a way that’s economically, environmentally, and socially sustainable.
“We have the food, fuel, and fertilizer the world needs, and our agriculture and food sector is poised to feed a growing world,” says Dr. Webb. However, to fully benefit from the opportunities before us and improve our exports on the global stage, Dr. Webb believes that the agriculture sector needs to be supported with domestic policies that truly allow the industry to flourish.
Four pillars to effective domestic policy framework
To meet these challenges, GIFS is advocating for a policy and regulatory framework that supports — rather than stifles — agricultural innovation and recommends focusing on four domestic policies. The first relates to innovation itself. “We can’t continue to tackle the challenges of today and tomorrow with
yesterday’s tools and technologies,” says Dr. Webb. “We need innovation to help deliver the greatest positive impact through our agrifood and other sectors,” he says.
At present, Canada’s innovation input doesn’t produce the return on investment (ROI) one might expect. According to the 2022 Global Innovation Index rankings, Canada places ninth globally for innovation inputs, but 23rd in terms of outcomes achieved. “We need to remedy this by creating a coherent, integrated national innovation strategy,” says Dr. Webb. “Innovation is a team sport, and we can no longer focus on revamping one part of the system without consideration for other areas involved,” says Dr. Webb.
The second recommendation is to drive major capital investments in infrastructure. “We can’t recommend a policy to improve Canadian exports without addressing the infrastructure to support these, such as rural wireless connectivity, our ports, and our rail systems” says Dr. Webb. “Investment in our infrastructure ensures Canada remains competitive and regains its reputation as a reliable supplier,” he says.
Innovation is a team sport, and we can no longer focus on revamping one part of the system without consideration for other areas involved.
The third recommendation is regulatory modernization through the creation of a transparent, science-based, and enabling regulatory framework. “Our agriculture and food sectors are impacted by regulatory complexity and bottlenecks, which limit producer and consumer access to the latest proven innovations,” says Dr. Webb. “A highly functional regulatory framework is a competitive advantage for Canada, as it builds trust both at home and globally. We know this can be done and we should lay the building blocks now by modernizing our regulatory system to embrace a science-based approach that supports our innovation, rather than waiting for a crisis to make it happen,” says Dr. Webb.
The fourth and final recommendation relates to sustainability. “Canada is one of the world’s most sustainable producers of food,
and [we] should be proud of the strides we’ve made and of how far we’ve come,” says Webb. In Saskatchewan, changes in agronomic practices such as no till and variable rate fertilizer application have transformed Saskatchewan’s crop production sector from being a greenhouse gas (GHG) emitter to being a net carbon sink. “When we consider policy changes, such as recent discussions to reduce fertilizer emissions by 30 per cent through decreased usage, we should instead take a science-based approach and consider what policies like this suggest to the world and the negative impact they have on Canadian agriculture,” says Dr. Webb. “Not doing so paints an inaccurate picture of how sustainable Canadian agriculture is and leads to public mistrust in our resilient and sustainable agriculture system, which in turn negatively impacts our export opportunities,” says Dr. Webb.
Collaboration needed between industry, government, and academia
To make these policy recommendations work effectively, Canada needs to bring all parties to the table to address national challenges and improve Canadian exports globally. GIFS has been working to do this since it was first established in 2012 as a partnership between the fertilizer producer Nutrien, the Government of Saskatchewan, and the University Saskatchewan. “GIFS’ model as an industry-government-academic partnership lets us capture the wisdom of the room and embrace the best of all three important stakeholders needed to advance innovation to market,” Dr. Webb.
Dr. Steven Webb CEO, Global Institute for Food Security
Why Canadians Should Learn More About Our Sustainable Food System
As someone who has worked in agriculture my entire adult life, I know firsthand that Canadians care about our food system and would like to know more about it. Our food system is a pillar of our trade and commerce and the foundation of many industries that make Canada one of the best countries in the world to live in.
An enviable food system
Canada’s food system today is based on science, research, economics, and rich experience. The agriculture sector has continuously adapted to meet our society’s demand for safe, reliable, and high-quality food at a reasonable cost. Despite rising prices, our food remains affordable compared to that of much of the world.
There are checks and balances, rules, regulations, and standards that make our food some of the safest, if not the safest, to consume in the entire world. Yet, when consumers hear the words genetic modification, plant breeding, pesticides, and fertilizers, many believe that they’re intrinsically bad things. They are, in fact, the tools we need to sustainably supply food to Canadians and maintain our ability to also feed people around the world.
our food is grown and produced is necessary to know how to sustain it in the future. Today, growing a bushel of corn requires 40 per cent less land, 40 per cent less energy, and 50 per cent less water compared to growing a bushel of corn in the 1980s, and it also produces 35 per cent fewer greenhouse gases.
If we were farming with 1960s technology, we’d need another one billion hectares of land to produce the same amount of food we do today. Using advancements in technology and plant and animal breeding is allowing us to sustainably produce more food on less land.
Supporting ongoing sustainability
Rain, heat, fires, and floods have touched every province. They’re affecting our ability to produce food. Yet, we still have an enviable food system.
For example, in the early 1900s, the wheat that Canadian farmers grew was shorter, took longer to mature, and needed more water than the wheat we grow today. With a growing world population expected to top nine billion by 2050, we cannot restrict the ability of our food system to feed people in a sustainable manner. As consumers, we all need to take an interest in our food system. According to the Canadian Centre for Food Integrity’s latest public trust research results, trusted sources of information are our farmers, research scientists, and our government.
Technology is also vital to steering the sustainability and growth of our national food production through the impacts of climate change. Rain, heat, fires, and floods have touched every province. They’re affecting our ability to produce food. Yet, we still have an enviable food system.
Mitigating climate change
The best way to mitigate climate change is to have soil that’s as resilient and healthy as possible. Canadian farmers recognize the need for reduced tillage, precision application of pesticides and fertilizers, planting cover crops that sequester carbon, judicious use of water, and better genetics in the crops and animals we raise. A solid knowledge of how
A better understanding of food production, its impact on our economy and environment, its challenges, and the role government plays in regulating the industry will help us make informed decisions about how we support a sustainable food system.
Learning more about our food system is a great way for Canadians to feel confident about supporting its sustainability and growth.
John Jamieson, President & CEO, Canadian Centre
Jamieson