Canada has placed food and beverage manufacturing at the centre of a new national food security strategy, backing a drive to process more of its own food with billions of dollars across new and existing programs and naming a recent cooperation agreement with Australia on agricultural inputs and regulatory reviews.
Released by Agriculture and Agri-Food Canada, More Choice. More Control. More Canada: The National Food Security Strategy aims to lift the share of processed food consumed in Canada that is made domestically from 70 to 80 per cent, and to almost double the growth rate of the food processing industry’s GDP, from an average 1.6 per cent a year to 2.75 per cent between 2027 and 2035. All figures are in Canadian dollars.
The strategy frames domestic processing as a structural weakness. Food, seafood and beverage processing is already Canada’s largest manufacturing sector and supplies about 70 per cent of the processed food and beverage products Canadians consume, yet much of what the country grows is exported for processing elsewhere. The GDP of Canada’s food processing sector is only 10 per cent larger than its primary agriculture sector, against 30 per cent in France and 70 per cent in both the United States and Germany.
Scale is the sticking point. Just seven per cent of Canada’s food and beverage processing establishments are medium-sized, with 66 per cent small and 26 per cent micro. The strategy attributes the gap to a shortage of capital for mid-sized firms to invest in technology and grow large enough to compete in export markets.
The capacity gaps are concrete. Although Canada is a major livestock producer, it lacks the domestic slaughter and processing to match, exporting 24 per cent of live hogs and 20 per cent of live cattle to the United States in 2025 while importing more than a quarter of the beef and pork it consumes.
The pattern repeats in horticulture: Canada exported more than $724 million in fresh tomatoes in 2025 but imported over $511 million in processed tomato products, and imports of prepared and packaged seafood top $2.5 billion a year despite a strong domestic catch.
To shift that, the federal government has committed to a new $1 billion Agri-food Project Finance Fund, delivered by Farm Credit Canada and aimed at value-added, capital-intensive projects. It sits alongside $2 billion Farm Credit Canada is already investing in food and agriculture innovation and a $5 billion commitment from a coalition of private investors.
Program funding is also being pointed at the factory floor. The Strategic Response Fund will direct $350 million to agri-food projects, with contributions of up to $50 million each, plus $150 million to food-related innovation ecosystems, with a first call for proposals in June 2026 and a second wave later in the year. A further $150 million in new funding goes to the Regional Economic Growth through Innovation program, $150 million to a new Food Security Fund, and $100 million to a Collaborative Food Innovation Fund under the Global Innovation Clusters program, which backs Protein Industries Canada.
The strategy points to recent corporate investment as evidence of momentum. Kraft Heinz Canada has committed $250 million to modernise its Montreal plant, and Mars Canada has committed $180 million across its Ontario snacking and pet food operations. Regina-based ingredient maker Avena Foods has scaled allergy-friendly oat and pulse ingredients with $5.5 million in cluster funding and $9.5 million from partners including Danone Canada and Old Dutch, while vertical farming group GoodLeaf Farms has raised more than $200 million to run three facilities producing about five million pounds of leafy greens a year.
For Australian manufacturers and ingredient suppliers, the clearest signal is on regulation. The strategy cites a recent agreement between the governments of Australia and Canada to cooperate on agricultural inputs and regulatory reviews to support economic resilience, trade and Indo-Pacific prosperity. It forms part of a wider plan to amend the Canadian Food Inspection Agency Act and the Pest Control Products Act so regulators weigh food security and the cost of food alongside health and safety, and to clear approval backlogs for seed, feed, fertilisers and veterinary biologics by the end of 2026. The deal arrives as Australia continues to debate its own settings, with CSIRO calling for a new approach to a fragmented national food system in June 2025 to closing its food science division in April 2026, and industry led consortiums conducting their own research to reveal how Australia could be a food superpower if it chose to be.
Controlled environment agriculture is a third plank. The strategy commits $750 million over seven years to a Controlled Environment Agriculture Growth Pathway, with $650 million for technology adoption such as automation, robotics and lighting and $100 million for rural and northern production. It targets doubling the value of controlled environment produce sold to the Canadian market, from $774 million in 2024 to $1.55 billion in 2032, and cutting the sector’s labour and energy costs by 10 to 20 per cent.
A separate $1 billion, 10-year Food-Link Fund will fund food terminals and hubs to give independent grocers an alternative to the wholesale networks of the major chains.
The plan lands against heavy import exposure. Canada is the world’s ninth largest agri-food exporter, shipping about $100 billion a year, but relies on imports for 88 per cent of the fresh fruit and nuts and 72 per cent of the vegetables its consumers eat, and on imports for 26 per cent of beef and 30 per cent of pork consumption. The US accounts for more than 61 per cent of Canadian agri-food exports and more than half of imports, and the strategy notes that US tariffs on third countries push up costs for Canadian importers.
For Australian readers, the scale of the commitment reads as a benchmark. The federal government’s Future Made in Australia agenda has drawn criticism from the food and beverage sector, the 2025 federal budget was branded another missed opportunity for the industry, and a recent report urged a restructure of the country’s $2.13 billion public food spend to favour local producers and processors.
Canada’s move mirrors food sovereignty plans elsewhere, including the Netherlands’ €20 billion National Growth Fund, France’s Fruit and Vegetable Sovereignty Plan and Japan’s target to raise calorie-based self-sufficiency from 38 to 45 per cent by 2030. The first Strategic Response Fund call opens this month, with an agreement to expand the Ontario Food Terminal targeted by the end of 2026.
