In an effort to strengthen domestic food-processing capacity, Canada is investing CAD 50 million (USD 35 million, EUR 31 million) in the Canadian Food Innovation Network (CFIN), Quebec Minister of Industry and Economic Development Mélanie Joly recently announced.
The investment – made through the country’s Strategic Response Fund and its National Food Security Strategy, which launched back in June – aims to support innovation and accelerate the adoption of advanced technologies, including AI, into processing operations.
“Canada has the talent, the resources, and the determination to produce more here at home,” Joly said. “Through the Strategic Response Fund, we are helping Canadian food companies harness innovation, automation, and AI to boost productivity and competitiveness. Our investment in CFIN will strengthen domestic processing capacity, support Canadian-made solutions, and help ensure Canadians have access to a stronger, more affordable, and more secure food system.”
Established in 2021, CFIN is an industry‑led nonprofit with a mission to help connect food and beverage companies with “the expertise, partners, and technologies they need to innovate and grow.” With this latest investment, CFIN said it will be able to expand its services to assist more food processors, including those in the seafood sector, in adopting and implementing “automation, artificial intelligence, digital manufacturing, and other advanced technologies.”
“Canada’s food processors are working hard to keep prices in check, but many are doing it with equipment and systems that haven’t kept pace with their global competitors,” CFIN CEO Dana McCauley said in a release. “Food 4.0 is CFIN’s plan to close that gap by helping manufacturers and processors adopt Canadian-made automation, AI, and digital tools and by backing the homegrown companies that build them. With the Government of Canada’s support, we can help our food sector produce more here at home and compete with the best in the world.”
More than 200 small and medium-sized enterprises will receive a lion’s share of the funding support, CFIN noted. Additionally, the organization said it plans to use the investment to broaden its national network of manufacturers, processors, distributors, operators, technology companies, funders, and innovators to 20,000 members, as well as facilitate “up to CAD 200 million (USD 140 million, EUR 125 million) in follow-on investment, create approximately 300 new jobs, and support over 450 total full-time equivalent positions.”
For seafood processors in particular, such direct technology funding “opens access to non-dilutive capital through CFIN’s FAST and Food Innovation Challenge programs to adopt automation, AI, and digital sensors on plant lines,” CFIN Director of Communications Jamil Karim told SeafoodSource, adding that it also works to keep value in Canada by “shifting the sector away from exporting raw catch overseas by enabling local secondary processing, higher yields, and automated quality control.”
Moreover, Karim said smaller seafood operations will receive assistance in scaling their operations, growing “into mid-sized operations that can meet national retail volume demands.”
Coastal and remote communities stand to benefit, too, with expanded regional processing capacity serving to “protect coastal and remote communities from global supply disruptions,” according to Karim.
“Billions in processed seafood is imported into Canada annually; modernizing domestic lines puts more Canadian-processed fish on local shelves,” Karim said.
Canada’s CFIN capital support aligns with a developing global processing trend toward increased automation. Countries like Vietnam, for example, are seeing seafood processors – including Minh Phu, Vinh Hoan, and Navico – turn to automation amid labor shortages to stay competitive when catering to Southeast Asia’s growing middle class demand.
“High labor shortages and aging demographics are forcing a rapid shift toward automated filleting, AI vision grading, and robotic packing,” Karim said of Canada’s similar predicament.
According to Food Processing Skills Canada (FPSC), one-fifth of the country’s food and beverage manufacturing workforce is between the ages of 55 and 64 and will be eligible for retirement within the next decade. In its 2022 Seafood Survey Report, FPSC found that 83 percent of seafood processor participants experienced recruitment difficulties.
“In the food and beverage industry, recruitment challenges are compounded by geographical barriers – especially in rural areas where attracting individuals willing to relocate for work remains difficult,” FPSC stated on its website. “These obstacles are particularly acute for Canada’s meat and Atlantic seafood processors, who face ongoing difficulties in hiring and retaining qualified workers for both foundational and skilled roles, from slaughter to final product. While the Temporary Foreign Worker Program has supported the industry in filling labor gaps, it does not offer a sustainable, long-term workforce solution.”
Among FPSC’s seven labor market recommendations for processors is to “increase industry efficiency and automation.”
Karim noted that some provincial seafood processors have taken this advice to heart; Atlantic Canada seafood suppliers are already leading the way in terms of high-volume shellfish and groundfish automation, hyperspectral imaging, and optical defect detection, while British Columbia’s seafood processors are pioneering in the spaces of AI-driven vision systems, automated sorting, and digital supply chain tracking.
“Automated sorting and yield-optimization tools lower per-unit processing costs and cut food waste,” Karim added.
