Three B.C.-based organizations will offer a new specialized training course aimed at boosting the skills of food industry workers.

BC Food & Beverage (BCFB), the University of British Columbia (UBC) and Cultivated Food Labs (CFL) are partnering with Protein Industries Canada, who is committing $760,000 to the $1-million initiative, which will be a four- to 12-week learning program. The other parties will foot the rest of the bill.

The genesis of the idea happened about 18 months ago, according to Joel Gfeller, president of Cultivated Food Labs who spoke to FoodNX in an interview.

During a conversation with BC Food & Beverage chief executive officer James Donaldson, the pair agreed that “there’s a gap in the skill sets of people, to really bring this concept of commercialization in-house . . . the goal I truly have is that Canadian companies succeed and get better,” Gfeller said.

“How do we break down some of these silos that exist in the industry where we’re not knowledge-sharing, and move it to where we really strengthen this industry?”

Training the "next generation"

The training program was launched as a result, and for the main funders of this scheme, the timing couldn’t be better.

“It creates a program that can be customized to help train that next generation of specialized workers . . . to support the companies that are helping build this national sector of food production and value-added agriculture,” Tyler Groeneveld, chief executive officer of Protein Industries Canada, told FoodNX.

The training is expected to be split between the three main facilitators in B.C., according to Gfeller.

Burnaby-based CFL develops food products and ingredients that can be commercialized. It uses plant-based and cultured proteins in its analytical and application lab, culinary grade kitchen, and a texturization pilot plant. Its goal is to help food manufacturers de-risk the process from concept to commercialization.

The university portion of the training will be held at the Faculty of Land and Food Systems at the University of British Columbia.

The new micro certificate program will include a variety of subjects such as “product formulation, processing and scale-up optimization; food safety, regulatory compliance, packaging and labeling requirements; (and) commercialization support,” Groeneveld said.

The program’s curriculum is expected to be finalized by October, Gfeller said.

“UBC and BC Food and Beverage and ourselves are hard at work fleshing that out, and without putting myself on a limb just yet, it will be probably be about 120 hours of course-based work.”

Bridging a gap in current training landscape

It will be aimed at businesses which are “truly interested in increasing their competitiveness,” Gfeller said.

“It’s . . . going to be small- to medium-sized food companies; ingredient companies, processors, scale-ups and traditional manufacturers.”

For the food industry as a whole, this new way of learning will hopefully bridge a gap in training, which up until now has largely focussed on primary agricultural production.

“As we try to increase our ability to make more domestically in terms of ingredients, students and workers need help transitioning into this food production and value-added agriculture sector," Groeneveld said. "We have such an opportunity to create new employment and a new skilled industry workforce to help this emerging industry grow, thrive, prosper, and ultimately see more investment here in Canada.” 

If successful, it will also help minimize Canada’s reliance on foreign expertise.

“We’ve observed over the last eight years that many companies have to import talent or outsource projects to other regions outside of Canada to get the skills they need to either do the innovative research projects or to commercialize,” Groeneveld said.

“We really want to reduce the reliance on external technical experts and service providers.”

Preparation for real-world applications

At CFL, the program will also provide students and those currently working in food production the opportunity to familiarize themselves with real-world food production machinery, according to Gfeller.

“A lot of the students have never stepped foot in a factory before, let alone started up or touched a piece of equipment themselves, or troubleshot a piece of equipment.”

“That’s one of those skills of competency in machinery; understanding how to troubleshoot,” he said.

The initiative will also help support the federal government’s new food security mandate, according to Groeneveld.

“As (mentioned) in the recent food security strategy . . . we talk about increasing our domestic processing capacity; transitioning from not only being a global supplier of commodity crops to a hungry world, but to taking a percentage of those crops and creating more incremental value by making more here.

"By elevating our processing capacity domestically in Canada, that’s going to require a workforce to support it."