Seasoned Support for Agriculture
Behind every success story, in every industry, there’s always a trail of people who contributed to the wins in ways both big and small. In Ontario’s agri-food sector, you’ll find a number of companies who work hard to support those at the forefront of agricultural ingenuity.
Agriculture plays a critical role in any economy, providing not only essential food and raw materials, but also employment opportunities for a large percentage of the population. To ensure food security and the sustainability of the sector, it’s crucial to have organizations in place that allow farms, producers, food entrepreneurs and agri-food businesses alike to continue to develop and grow.
As entrepreneurs know, innovation is very much a collaborative process and the phrase, “It takes a village…” applies to more than just raising children. It also takes a support network to nurture and develop new ideas, to explore and implement new innovations, and to disrupt and change the status quo. From providing loans for farmers or growers and offering facilities and expertise to entrepreneurs, to funding revolutionary technology, the four innovation- driven organizations that follow provide the necessary support to keep the sector thriving, while ensuring every good idea is given the opportunity to reach its full potential.
COUNTY FOOD HUB
Schools are often the heartbeat within rural communities, pumping life into the surrounding area and acting as a vital source of communication and connection for not only students and parents, but for all community members. And so, it’s no wonder that when one of these beloved schools in Prince Edward County (PEC) was marked to close its doors for good, the community rallied to find a solution.
Melissa Tran was one of many parents who understood the significance of their small but vibrant school in Sophiasburgh, Ont. With support from the municipality, community members, businesses, local farmers, food purveyors and celebrated chefs, she set out to determine how to fill the underutilized space with what the community needed most: a community kitchen. With the region’s robust food and agriculture industry, it’s no surprise that they landed on Prince Edward County Food Hub (CFH)as the solution. The commercial, “sharing” kitchen is now fondly known as “the kitchen that saved the school.”
Tran is now the general manager of CFH and says, “My favourite part about County Food Hub is that it supports agri-food businesses to build their brands and increase production with top-level professional equipment, which filters products back into the community. When local businesses do well, they invest in their hometown, they choose to stay living here and the community keeps thriving. I love that.”
Partnerships are key in a social enterprise such as this and as Tran says, “The Hastings and Prince Edward District School Board are phenomenal partners with us. Many local businesses and community members stepped up in the beginning, donating money and donating time, and they were a huge resource in getting this going. They remain a tremendous support to us today.“
After opening their doors in late 2019, County Food Hub felt the full brunt of the pandemic. Despite the challenges that came with the public health crisis, they have become an asset to their clients and to the community as a whole. Whether it’s Haanover View Farms who have been able to increase production of their pork products, or County Fare, a jam and preserves company that has gone from selling at farmers’ markets to being in 80 Sobey’s stores across Canada, Tran says, “That’s what we want. We want to be here to help take people from selling from their homes and roadside stands to getting on grocery store shelves.”
During this crucial time, CFH also became home to various food security groups and at one point had more than 500 ready-made meals a week going out to various shelters and food banks in the area. As an organization that understands the importance of quality food, CFH is also proud to offer fresh produce at affordable prices during their community based, bi-weekly PEC Fresh Market. “The busier the market gets, the more produce we can buy. The more we buy, the better the wholesale price — it is a beneficial, stigma-free program for everybody,” says Tran.
Valley Heartland CFDC
Valley Heartland Community Futures Development Corporation (CFDC) is located in Smiths Falls, Ont., and like other CFDCs executes the Community Futures program on behalf of FedDev Ontario. In addition to providing business loans, offering free business support, and delivering grants, they also act as Lanark County’s Economic Development Centre for nine rural communities.
The team at Valley Heartland knows Lanark County is a great place to live and work and it appears word is getting out. Their general manager Tina Stevens points out that in 2016 the agri-food sector employed 3,700 people (17 percent of the total employment), and despite the pandemic those numbers grew to 4,700 by 2021. Lanark County’s population growth is also among the top three in Ontario (from Census 2016 to 2021) after seeing an 8.3 percent increase, with another 10 percent growth projected by 2031.
Amidst the rapid growth, Valley Heartland has been busy assisting many of the agri-food businesses in the area and has lent out more money throughout the last two and a half years than in the six years prior combined. They have been a part of many success stories in the surrounding area and have assisted in the development and growth of companies such as Oat & Mill Ice Cream, Loon Kombucha, Perth Pie, Bluegrass Farms and more. Their roster has included various wineries and distilleries, and Stevens believes they’ve supported every brewery in the county at some point over the last five years. One of their clients, Dairy Distillery, merged artisanal distilling with innovative science to help both dairy farmers and the environment by transforming leftover milk sugar (which can be harmful to the environment if not disposed of correctly) into a lactose- and gluten-free vodka. Vodkow vodka has been a huge success in the area and is now sold in LCBOs.
Not all ideas make it to fruition, but as Stevens says, “When people come in with these extraordinary ideas, it’s really exciting that we can help them get started when banks can’t. […] What I love most is that it’s ever-changing. We have new clients all the time so there’s always a new entrepreneur, a new idea, a new problem and a new reason to celebrate.”
As Lanark County is an established and growing agricultural hub, farms are one of the top employers in the area. It’s home to 740 farms, 25 percent of which sell directly to consumers via approximately 40 different famers’ markets in the county (the provincial average for this is 14 percent).
In supporting such a large and thriving area, Valley Heartland understands the value of partnerships and collaborations and appreciated the opportunity to run a peer-to-peer program with Launch Lab (a regional innovation centre based in Kingston, Ont.) that created an opportunity for local agri-food companies to meet monthly to discuss, dissect and brainstorm around a certain topic pertaining to their businesses. As a result of this program, Stevens says they now see a lot of different entrepreneurs in their catchment area collaborating on food products and innovation.
With all of this growth and innovation on their hands, it’s no wonder the CFDC has recently opened a 5,000-square-foot innovation centre that acts as a one-stop-shop for accessing advice, capital, training and business support. It appears the soil is good in Lanark County and the Valley Heartland team is looking forward to the new entrepreneurs, businesses, farms and products that are bound to sprout and grow within it.
Not all ideas make it to fruition, but as Stevens says, “When people come in with these extraordinary ideas, it’s really exciting that we can help them get started when banks can’t. […] What I love most is that it’s ever-changing. We have new clients all the time so there’s always a new entrepreneur, a new idea, a new problem and a new reason to celebrate.”
As Lanark County is an established and growing agricultural hub, farms are one of the top employers in the area. It’s home to 740 farms, 25 percent of which sell directly to consumers via approximately 40 different famers’ markets in the county (the provincial average for this is 14 percent).
Dairy Distillery co-founders Neal McCarten (left) and Omid McDonald (right) are shaking up the spirits industry with their innovative Vodkow vodka products made from material that would otherwise become waste.
In supporting such a large and thriving area, Valley Heartland understands the value of partnerships and collaborations and appreciated the opportunity to run a peer-to-peer program with Launch Lab (a regional innovation centre based in Kingston, Ont.) that created an opportunity for local agri-food companies to meet monthly to discuss, dissect and brainstorm around a certain topic pertaining to their businesses. As a result of this program, Stevens says they now see a lot of different entrepreneurs in their catchment area collaborating on food products and innovation.
With all of this growth and innovation on their hands, it’s no wonder the CFDC has recently opened a 5,000-square-foot innovation centre that acts as a one-stop-shop for accessing advice, capital, training and business support. It appears the soil is good in Lanark County and the Valley Heartland team is looking forward to the new entrepreneurs, businesses, farms and products that are bound to sprout and grow within it.
ACCFutures
Since its formation in 1987, ACCFutures (formerly Cornwall & the Counties Community Futures Development Corporation) has grown and evolved to meet the needs of the communities it serves. While their core contract is with FedDev Ontario to deliver the Community Futures program, they also have a venture capital fund for equity investments in businesses, along with two other programs: ACCInnovation and ACCPathways. ACCPathways is operated as a consultancy to help non-Indigenous organizations build relationships with and work alongside First Nations and other Indigenous communities, whereas the ACCInnovation program allows them to utilize available grants and work with entrepreneurs to transform their business operations through innovation.
Fieldless Farms is a new kind of farm (known as controlled environment agriculture) that achieves ideal growing and harvesting climates and conditions year-round by growing all of their produce indoors.
“I think the benefit of working with us is our creativity and the way that we’re well-leveraged to pull in partners from across the spectrum,” says Pietersma. “We’re very good at working with a variety of funders, connecting government programs, B2C, commercial banks in some cases, equity investments, etc. We are also a founding member of the Southeastern Ontario Angel Network chapter here in Cornwall. […] We’re very good at connecting the various sectors, bringing those that maybe have more of an agricultural background into the commercial side of things and connecting them with opportunities that are more typically thought of as meant for manufacturing and high-tech investments.”
Having successfully transitioned from being a not-for-profit to a social enterprise, Pietersma explains, “We’re really here to make this area, this community, the people who live here and the businesses that operate here, a better place. We balance our desire to build a better community with the fact that we do need to fund the operation.”
Looking forward, Pietersma says, “We want to make sure that we’re not letting any good idea languish because it doesn’t have funding and support through either Launch Lab, economic development offices or organizations like ours. We want to make sure that every person out there with that idea has an opportunity.”
Ontario Agri-Food Venture Centre
The Ontario Agri-Food Venture Centre (OAFVC) located in Colborne, Ont. was designed and developed with local farmers in mind but draws in clients from far and wide.
The 15,000-square-foot food-manufacturing facility is operated by Northumberland County and was funded by municipal, provincial and federal governments to serve as a launchpad for food entrepreneurs as they progress into the next phase of business growth. The centre functions as a hub for economic development in the area and the agri-business sector as a whole through a wide variety of food processing and production offerings, whether it’s by supporting value-add opportunities to increase revenue for farmers, assisting with recipe development, offering pelletizing, packaging and storage services for hops producers, serving as a training facility and more.
Since opening its doors in 2015, the OAFVC has seen many successes for clients, and as Northumberland County’s settlement service coordinator Emilio Ojeda says, “We used to display our clients’ products on a small shelf from IKEA and now we have two full walls of products in huge cases. It’s very exciting.”
In addition to his role with the county, Ojeda is also a chef and had an opportunity in the centre’s early days to launch his own product (Emerald Smoked Ketchup), which was then sold in local stores and grocers. “I was able to see how easy it can be to have an idea and make it happen,” says Ojeda. “There’s no need to ask for huge financing or to take a second mortgage on your home. You just need to be able to afford the raw materials and your time in the OAFVC, and then the team there will help in so many ways with the development of your product. […] We show food entrepreneurs just how easy it is to make finished products that are ready to hit store shelves. That’s truly what the OAFVC does.”
Students and staff at Cambellford District High School know this to be true after embarking on their own entrepreneurial venture that started out with a recipe for hot salsa. After partnering with the OAFVC, students were able to be hands-on throughout the process of labelling, branding and cooking their very own product. Each year, a new batch of students come in with the same salsa recipe to carry on the tradition. This delicious salsa is sold in local stores and supermarkets and as Ojeda attests: “Their salsa flies off the shelves; it’s that good. People buy it by the case.”
New this year, the OAFVC and Northumberland County launched the New Canadian Food Entrepreneur program, an intensive eight-week course funded by Immigration, Refugees and Citizenship Canada meant to help newcomers to the country develop their own products and bring more ethnically diverse products to the market. The initial pilot program had 16 participants, and by the end of the program, six participants were ready to take the next step to make their product at the centre with the goal of taking it to market. Based on such a great success, the OAFVC hopes to receive the necessary funding to be able to offer this free skill development program on a consistent, ongoing basis in the future.
Connect with Spark
Twitter: @spark_centre
Instagram: @spark_centre
LinkedIn: https://ca.linkedin.com/company/spark-centre
sparkcentre.org
