Agri-Food Innovation Centre

Expanded Services and Support of Innovation in Agriculture

For the past 22 plus years, the Food Centre has built a solid reputation in providing services and expertise to help food processors and agri-businesses bring food and ingredient innovations to commercialization. As a result, the Food Centre team has assisted more than 410 agri-businesses to develop and process approximately 944 innovative products. Our leadership in food safety, training, innovative product and process development, interim processing and extrusion of new and unique ingredients, technical troubleshooting, among others, have increased the presence of local food products in the marketplace.

The agri-food industry is changing and growing at an exceptional rate. To continue to strengthen and position the industry to capture market opportunities, the Food Centre constructed a new Agri-Food Innovation Centre (AFIC) in 2017, with increased capabilities and capacity to better serve the industry.

AFIC became a reality when the Federal and Provincial governments made a funding announcement on February 20, 2015 to support the expansion of Saskatchewan’s food and ingredient processing sector. More than $13 million in funding for the Food Centre to build and equip a new innovation centre was announced. Of the $13 million, nine million of the funding was provided under Growing Forward 2, a federal-provincial-territorial initiative and $4.3 million from Western Economic Diversification and the remaining funds, approximately $2.5 million will come from industry investment into the Food Centre and from the Food Centre’s capital replacement fund.

Links to News Releases (2015)

Government of Canada – Agriculture and Agri-food Canada
Government of Canada – Western Economic Diversification
Government of Saskatchewan – Ministry of Agriculture

In 2019, the Food Centre received further funding, under the Canadian Agricultural Partnership (CAP), to expand the Agri-Food Innovation Centre by another 17,500 square ft.  Phase 1 of the expansion was completed in spring of 2020 and has added a commercial extrusion processing facility, incubation suites, added storage and increase capacity to support exploration of novel uses from locally grown inputs to create greater value for our agricultural sector, specifically the plant-based protein market.

Phase 2 of the expansion is expected to be completed in 2022.  This second phase expansion will see added technologies to explore unique ingredient manufacturing practices and fermentation to offer pre and post processing in filtration, separation, drying and convert bio and plant materials using ingredients derived from plant-based sources to meet consumer demands for clean label and natural products.

Links to News Releases (2021)

Government of Canada – Agriculture and Agri-food Canada
Government of Saskatchewan – Ministry of Agriculture

The long term strategy will be to use the Agri-Food Innovation Centre to encourage expansion of the food and agricultural processing industry in Saskatchewan by supporting entrepreneurship and innovation. This mulit-unit complex will support multiple industry players in their start-up strategies and allow small and medium sized agri-food companies the potential to expand their businesses into either larger stand alone or multi-unit processing structures.  In addition, AFIC will accommodate other organizations with similar interests and goals focused on commercialization of new technologies for processing of agricultural based products.

The Agri-Food Innovation Centre will play an essential role in the growth of Saskatchewan’s agri-food industry with direct impact to the province’s agriculture, economy and labour force. Be part of the community in supporting entrepreneurship, sustainable agriculture, and innovation in Saskatchewan!

Campaign to Raise Additional Funds

With a strong funding support from both levels of government, the AFIC is now a reality. To continue our momentum of growing the industry additional funds are always welcomed to strengthen and position the industry to capture new market opportunities. New equipment, better technologies and services with direct benefits the agriculture industry will be a result of your investment. As a stakeholder in the agriculture and agri-food industries, the Food Centre is seeking your support to invest in the new Agri-Food Innovation Centre. With a variety of financial contribution options to select from, become a partner in growing Saskatchewan’s agriculture industry.

We can customize donations specifically to your company or organization. Join the group of companies on the right who have made a contribution to advance agri-food sector!

Food Centre pleased to announce Saskatchewan Pulse Growers’ $750,000 commitment to AFIC – read article

Food Centre pleased to announce SaskCanola’s $550,000 investment in future of food product development – read article

FCL invests $500K to help bring Saskatchewan food to Western Canadian market – read article