Sustainable Protein Production program – Canada

Deadline: 28-Jul-21

The Government of Canada has launched the applications for the Sustainable Protein Production program to facilitate the rapid introduction of new technologies and processes with the potential to improve Canada’s position as a global leader in supplying sustainable plant protein, plant-protein-based products, and value-adding co-products to domestic and international markets.

This initiative targets mature technologies or technologies in late-stage development that have a strong and demonstrable potential to address key challenges in the Canadian plant-protein sector.

Support will be allocated to facilitate the adaptation of these technologies for use in the plant-protein sector, promote their adoption by stakeholders, and facilitate their implementation.

The Sustainable Protein Production program supports the vision and mandate of the Protein Industries Canada (PIC) Supercluster by conducting collaborative, interdisciplinary research that advances scientific knowledge, facilitates technology development, and directly improves the competitiveness of the Canadian plant-protein sector.

Priority Areas

Priority will be given to projects with the greatest potential to deliver innovation and new approaches that can be rapidly implemented to address critical gap areas:

Improve the productivity and sustainability of protein-crop production practices
Increase the efficiency and cost-competitiveness of protein-crop processing and manufacturing
Enhance safety and security across the Canadian plant-protein value chain
Address disruptions and unique challenges created by the COVID-19 pandemic
Create new product opportunities and value-added revenue streams
Improve the safety, quality and traceability of products across the plant-protein value chain
Address risks arising from “black swan” events (e.g. global pandemic), such as disrupted supply chains, transportation barriers, labour shortages, reduce market access and demand

Strategic Areas

Program activities are concentrated in 3 strategic areas:

Improved protein sources: More sustainable and productive protein crops in Canada through better crop design, more efficient utilization of resources, and an enhanced capacity to respond to changing environmental pressures.
Sustainable production practices: Technologies, advanced tools and novel approaches to address uniquely Canadian challenges to producing protein crops in an efficient and sustainable manner.
Processing and manufacturing innovations: Innovation that increases the competitiveness of the sector by addressing key challenges in protein-crop processing, creating new product opportunities and value-added revenue streams for co-products, and improving the safety, quality and traceability of Canada-branded protein products.

Funding Information

The goal is to fund up to 3 of the most promising projects for 3 years and a maximum of $200,000 per project.
Only projects which improve the sustainability, productivity and global competitiveness of the Canadian plant-protein sector will be considered.

Eligibility Criteria

Eligible recipients of contribution funding under this call are domestic and international external collaborators that may include: