Do you know how Canadian food gets from the farm to your table? I donât.
I also donât really know how Canadaâs food industry is responding to the ongoing tariff threats, and how much the âbuy Canadianâ movement is softening the blow.
ââBy the time these companies are ready for B and C [rounds], their cap tables are super clean, too. So it doesn’t really make sense that we’re not putting money into them.â
Dana McCauley
CFIN CEO
But our guest does. This week, weâre talking to Dana McCauley, CEO of the Canadian Food Innovation Network (CFIN), a member-based organization representing over 6,500 players in Canadaâs food sector.
CFIN has just released an ecosystem report on the state of foodtech investment showing Canada lagging in the later stages, leaving foodtech overly reliant on public fundingâsomething I actually do know about, as it matches Canadaâs venture sector broadly. Tellingly, public grants account for nearly one-third of all investment rounds in Canada, compared to 5 percent in the United Kingdom and 8 percent in the United States.
At the early stages, Canada does actually match its global counterparts. As McCauley put it, “âWe don’t have a startup problem. We have a scale up problem. We’ve kind of orphaned these companies.”
But what is food tech? And what do these innovators need to compete and succeed, particularly in a time of global uncertainty and threats to national sovereignty?
I guarantee youâre going to be hungry by the end of this episode. But weâll try to fill your tummy first with data. So letâs dig in.
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Feature image courtesy CFIN. Edited by Darian MacDonald.