In the wake of economic uncertainty and shifting trade partners, the federal government recently unveiled Canada’s first-ever National Food Security Strategy.

“Canada is one of the world’s great food producers. But too much of what we grow is processed elsewhere, and too many Canadians still rely on imported food at higher prices. Canadian farmers deserve more options to sell their produce, and Canadians deserve more options for where to buy their food,” Prime Minister Mark Carney said in the announcement.

The strategy includes four main areas of focus:

• Create more grocery store competition;
• Grow fruits and vegetables all-year;
• Cut red tape in the agricultural supply chain; and
• Modernize regulations and speed up approvals.

The ambitious plan calls for the government to spend more than $3 billion over the next 10 years.

Reaction to announcement

But did the government come up with a winning plan? FoodNX spoke to representatives from two organizations who are a part of Canada’s food industry to gauge the government’s performance.

“We welcome Mark Carney’s announcements, and I think it’s high time the restaurant industry was part of that discussion,” Matt Triemstra, vice-president of federal affairs with industry group, Restaurants Canada, said in an interview with FoodNX.

“I mean the devil will be in the details but as an organization, we’re very happy because it’s something that we have been advocating for a long time: we want a strong Canadian supply chain. I think it is a good start, and it’s not based on a political cycle,” Lori Nikkel, chief executive officer at Toronto-based Second Harvest said.

Second Harvest is Canada’s largest food-rescue organization.

“This is a government that actually is thinking about food and agriculture in a way that I have not seen. I’m delighted by that,” she added.

Plan to lower produce prices

For Restaurants Canada, any type of strategy that lowers the cost of food is appreciated and in particular, investing to build more greenhouses would be welcomed by operators, Triemstra said.

“It’s so hard for restaurants to get good produce, and when we look year-over-year at prices: cucumbers have gone up 28 per cent, tomatoes have gone up 14 per cent; lettuce is up 12 per cent, carrots are up six per cent,” he said.

The plan calls for an investment of $750 million to create more “greenhouses, vertical farms, and other enclosed growing spaces,” according the government release.

However, one area that wasn’t mentioned should be included in order to stem the overwhelming tide of unused food, Nikkel said.

“There’s so much surplus food in this country, and $58 billion of completely avoidable edible food is being wasted. I’m quite confident that once the food supply study is done, they will integrate the food waste piece because we do need a food waste strategy in this country,” she said.

One way that could quickly put a dent into the massive amount of waste is by modifying the best-before labelling system.

“One of the things that is always annoying for us is best-before dates, and they’re 23 per cent of all avoidable food waste, and we know that they’re not about food safety, they’re about peak quality and so, how do we address this? We don’t have to recreate the wheel, these strategies exist in other countries: let’s just copy them, they’re good; they’re working,” Nikkel said.

While perishable food obviously needs a dating system, a lot of foods do not. “Those are things that will last for years and years and years, so best-before date is only good once the food is open, but they will last for years,” she said.

More money to build more food distribution capacity

The government also pledged $1 billion to create and expand upon the food terminal and hub system, which was also sends a good message to restaurant operators, according to Triemstra.

“We see this across the country . . . and so if we can see more regional food hubs and distributors appear across the country, we think that’s good news for us,” he said.

While the plan seems to offer a lot of hope for businesses and consumers, it needs to have participation from some major players in Canada’s $173.4-billion-per-year food industry in order to work.

“We talk to industry a lot, and it feels pretty positive for a lot of SMEs (small and medium-sized enterprise), so I feel like there’s industry buy-in,” Nikkel said.

But while there was initial agreement to participate, more work needs to be done to advance the strategy, Nikkel argued.

“I think where we got it wrong the first time, is there was not enough industry at that table. The big players need to be at the table too because they’re going to do things with or without the government.”

“So, let’s try to all get on the same page,” she said.

Permanent removal of GST on all food

There is another point that wasn’t mentioned which would really help small restaurant operators, Triemstra said.

“Why don’t we eliminate the GST permanently? That’s one of our core asks that we’ve been talking about around Ottawa, and it’s one thing that this strategy doesn’t address: reducing taxes on food.”

“We would love to see a permanent exclusion of all food — including restaurant food — from the GST.”