The 2026 FCC Food and Beverage Report states sales among food and beverage manufacturers are predicted to rise by 0.8 per cent while volumes fall by 0.7 per cent, the fourth straight year of decline. It notes sales growth will likely be driven by higher prices, not higher consumption.

WHY IT MATTERS: With trade tensions still disrupting global supply, prices could fluctuate this year, affecting consumers’ choices.

FCC chief economist Craig Johnston said this disparity speaks to the issue of consumer purchasing power.

“Higher food prices over the past several years are really weighing on households’ budgets,” he said in an interview. “They’re making more cost-conscious decisions.”

“This is actually a headwind for consumption and a headwind for volumes.”

He said any upstream changes will no doubt filter down to Canadian producers. Some challenges are shared across sectors.

“When we think about common elements, you can think about the tariffs, the elevated input costs, generally,” he said.

Margins are tight across the sector, including for farmers.

“We’re not seeing massive improvements on margins within the food and beverage manufacturing sector to pre-COVID levels, and we’re not necessarily seeing that filter through to a broad-based increase in margins for primary ag.”

“The industry in general is still going through this adjustment period” he said, “and we do expect that to continue to 2026.”

Trade tensions still a factor

Canada will continue to grapple with trade uncertainty this year, including the recent instability caused by the conflict in the Middle East.

Forecasts for costs of goods in the Food and Beverage Report were made before the crisis, “meaning that if the commodity price surge persists beyond just a few months, there would be upside risks to those estimates.”

FCC had expected pressures on some inputs, such as cattle and hogs, to ease from 2025 highs, but surging energy prices due to the conflict make that less likely.

Costs of production up

Production costs for food and beverage manufacturers increased by two per cent in 2025, driven mostly by raw material costs.

“The increase in raw material costs was driven by disruptions that constrained availability and raised prices,” the report states.

“Some examples from 2025 include avian influenza impacts on poultry … tariffs that increased the cost of imported aluminum packaging and historically low cattle herd sizes across North America.”

Costs across sectors

The report also breaks down costs associated with sub-sectors of food and beverage processing.

In grain and oilseed milling, sales were uneven in 2025 but improved by the fourth quarter. 2026 shows signs of a rebound in sales and volumes.

Large carryover of canola stocks is expected to keep prices under pressure in 2026. Canola prices are expected to fall by 3.1 per cent in 2026.

The report suggested demand for Canadian maple syrup and honey has continued to increase in the global market.

In the dairy sector, 2026 will likely see a 3.6 per cent increase of product manufacturing sales over 2025. Processors are also expected to pass along costs from the producer price increase for unprocessed milk to consumers.

In the meat manufacturing sector, FCC forecasts sales up 1.6 per cent and volumes down by 5.6 per cent.

Tight supplies of live animals, due largely to disease outbreaks, drove prices up in 2025. According to the report, “2026 will likely see another year where price, not volume, drives sales upward.”

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Protein Industries Canada (PIC) announced the project on March 31. PIC will provide $1.4 million toward the projects’ $3.9 million price tag.

AGT Foods and Sweet Nutrition will develop pulse ingredients derived from peas, lentils and faba beans for use in food products like cereals, baking mixes and high-protein snacks, PIC said in a news release.

The project will also advance new processing and post-fractionation techniques, including heat-moisture treatment and blending and extrusion. Other goals include increased efficiency and throughput at AGT’s Regina extrusion facility and the expansion and automation of Sweet Nutrition’s Saskatoon, Sask. baking and packaging operations.

“This project is a strong example of how food production and value-added agriculture can unlock new markets for Canadian crops and create new economic value for Canada,” said PIC CEO Tyler Groeneveld in the news release,

PIC is one of Canada’s five, federally-established Global Innovation Clusters, which fund and advance research and development in different industries.

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Such a move would mark an acceleration of efforts to reshape Unilever. More than one Unilever CEO has tried to refocus the company’s portfolio by expanding in personal care and beauty, and selling some food brands.

The food business came under the spotlight again when the Financial Times reported that Unilever might spin it off, and had held merger talks with Kraft Heinz, which ended.

Unilever’s shares, which were higher in early trade on Friday, had fallen to their lowest since July last year as investors and analysts worried that CEO Fernando Fernandez could be distracted from the day-to-day running of Unilever by the potential separation. And they questioned ‌the benefits of such an action so soon after Unilever’s protracted ice cream unit split.

How much is Unilever’s food business worth?

Unilever’s packaged food business accounts for more than a quarter of group sales, but faces pressures from a shift away from ultra‑processed products, competition from private label brands, and softer demand as the rise of weight‑loss drugs changes consumer buying habits.

Home to Knorr bouillon powders and Hellmann’s condiments, the division’s underlying operating margin – which excludes the impact of foreign currency exchange rates – was 22.6 per cent of revenue, outstripping the group’s 20 per cent margin last year.

The food business, which also makes Marmite spreads, reported an operating profit of 2.9 billion euros (C$4.6 billion) last year, giving it an enterprise value of roughly 30 billion euros (C$47.6 billion), according to Barclays estimates.

Slower to grow compared with the rest

The business, Unilever’s second largest by sales after personal care, grew at 2.5 per cent last year, more slowly than the rest of the group and well below the company’s own mid-term goal.

Underlying sales growth at Unilever’s foods division has lagged that of other units since the COVID-19 pandemic highs, repeatedly falling short of the company’s annual goal of sales growth of between four and six per cent.

Analysts and investors question the long-term prospects of the packaged food industry when politicians, including U.S. Health Secretary Robert F. Kennedy Jr, have highlighted the potential health risks of processed foods.

Developed markets have reached saturation

Part of the problem is that the business is operating in two contexts: developed and emerging markets. Unilever’s food business is growing more slowly in North America and Europe than in countries such as India and parts of Latin America, where the group has a stronghold in food and private label products are less sophisticated, meaning they offer less competition.

“There is more growth in emerging markets, which accounts for 55 per cent of food for Unilever, but it’s still not enough to make up for Europe and the U.S. where the market is saturated,” Barclays analyst Warren Ackerman said.

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Protein Industries Canada has committed $1.3 million to these projects through its Strengthening the Canadian Supply Chain program the organization said in a Feb. 25 news release. The companies will collectively chip in about $400,000.

The projects announced are:

• Fresh Hemp Foods in Manitoba will develop a dry fractionated flax protein powder for business to business and consumer sales.
• Ontario-based 1847 Stone Milling will develop and commercialize a Canadian-grown, high-protein Atta flour. Atta is a finely-milled flour often used in Indian and South Asian cuisine. Atta flour is largely imported in Canada, Protein Industries Canada said.
• Yofiit Inc., based in Ontario, is developing a high-protein drinkable yogurt incorporating flax, oats and legumes.
• MeeT Restaurants in B.C. is developing a plant-based burger to feature in its restaurants and for online sales in order to switch to a product made of Canadian ingredients.
• Farmery Estate Brewery in Manitoba will upcycle spent brewer’s grains into a protein-rich beverage base and ingredient.
• Henry’s Tempeh in Ontario is scaling production of marinated tempeh made with Canadian organic soybeans.
• HealX Vitals in Ontario is developing ProteinFries, a high-protein frozen fry using Canadian pulses and grains.
• Trueleaf Petcare, based in B.C., is developing and scaling cold-formed dental sticks for dogs using Canadian ingredients.
• Grazy, based in Quebec, is reformulating its frozen dessert and beverage lines using Canadian pea and fava bean protein.

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The facility, previously owned by U.S.-based Scoular, has been bought by Orenda Commodity Services Ltd. out of Ste. Agathe. The deal includes all of Scoular’s sunflower and wild bird food blending business, according to a Jan. 20 release from the Nebraska company.

“Running two facilities, that’ll do two things,” said Nicolas Nordick, assistant general manager with Orenda. “It’ll obviously grow our throughput in a year, and what it’ll also do is it will give us a bit of flexibility if ever there is breakdowns or whatever. We can keep servicing our customers and also our producers as well. We can keep receiving loads in either facility.”

WHY IT MATTERS: Local farmer contracts with Orenda are expected to jump significantly with a new sunflower facility under the company’s umbrella.

According to the Jan. 20 release, the new owners are a family-owned, “vertically integrated operation with farming roots in the Woodlands (region),” who create custom seed mixes for both bird food and human consumption. The Winkler plant is set up for both streams, Scoular said.

According to Orenda’s website, their business spans special crops commodity marketing, farm sourcing, processing, custom bird food blending, packaging and shipping. As well as sunflower varieties, the company cites crops like millet, milo, safflower and canary seed.

Smooth transition expected

Winkler facility staff will carry over into the new ownership, according to Nordick.

“There’s a very solid crew down in Winkler that mesh really well with our crew in Ste. Agathe — a lot of long-term employees, and that is just very rewarding for us on our end, being the new kids on the block, that they are willing to stay on,” he said.

The company expects farmer contracts will jump with the addition.

“If we’ve got two mouths to feed, we’ve got to service that many more pounds, so it’ll keep growing for sure,” Nordick said.

According to the Jan. 20 release, Orenda employs 80 staff across four locations in Manitoba.

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At the 2025 Canadian Hemp Trade Alliance (CHTA) annual conference in Winnipeg in November, one of the clearest messages came from agronomist and biologist Trevor Kloeck, who warned that hemp evangelism has done real damage to the crop’s credibility.

WHY IT MATTERS: Realistic expectations help farmers match hemp to the fields and management it needs to perform.

Kloeck, president and co-founder of Plantae Environmental, spoke during the conference’s Hemp Resiliency Workshop. He said the industry has long struggled to temper the optimistic zeal of some of its supporters.

“I think it was all very innocent,” he said in an interview.

“As real opportunities emerged, that optimistic voice got very loud and drowned out the sober, business-minded voice.”

Early messaging often leaned heavily on broad claims that the crop required little management, could be grown anywhere or would naturally outperform other rotations. It’s easy to see why early adopters were drawn in by the promises, but the moment boots hit the dirt, farmers learned some hard lessons about the crop.

“Hemp isn’t a crop you can plant and forget about,” said Kloeck. “It responds to good agronomy better than most crops, but it will also punish bad agronomy more severely.”

That gap between expectation and reality shaped farmer perceptions early on. Many growers who tried hemp in the 1990s and early 2000s found the crop rarely lived up to the hype. Harvest challenges, fibre wrapping, fertility needs and inconsistent markets all contributed to a Prairie-wide sense of disappointment that the industry still contends with today.

Hemp does have wide potential, but the promises came faster than processor demand, market development and regulatory progress.

“Making products from hemp and making a business out of hemp are different things,” he said. “We forgot that we were also building the bones of a new industry.”

That pattern resurfaced during the 2018 CBD bubble. After the U.S. legalized hemp, thousands of American growers rushed into CBD production, many encouraged by promotional campaigns promising quick profits.

But extracting CBD turned out to be difficult, the market wasn’t ready and the hype collapsed as quickly as it began. Many growers were left with unsold biomass, financial losses and a lingering bad taste in their mouths.

Kloeck said evangelism hasn’t only misled farmers; it’s also affected high-level business relationships. He described working with a major multinational company, one large enough to “write a $5 billion cheque without going to the bank,” that was interested in hemp fibre.

When the company asked for carbon-offset data, Kloeck’s team provided measured, defensible figures. But the company came back comparing those numbers to claims made by another supplier — claims Kloeck said were “mathematically impossible.”

For Kloeck, it was a clear example of how overstatements can hinder opportunities rather than accelerate them. That unrealistic pitch skewed expectations and made it harder for legitimate suppliers to compete.

The way forward, he said, is to treat hemp as a premium, management-intensive crop, something closer to malt barley than a low-effort rotation filler.

“You don’t grow malt barley everywhere,” he said. “You grow it on selected fields, and you manage it carefully. That’s how we have to think about hemp.”

Hemp’s long-term potential is still significant. Kloeck noted it can fit well in Prairie rotations when matched to the right soils, management and markets.

The CHTA is reporting that fibre demand is slowly increasing, feed registrations continue to move through regulatory channels and food-grade seed production remains steady. But continued growth depends on avoiding the overstatements that once clouded public messaging.

“The potential is so good we don’t have to embellish,” he said. “We have an opportunity to build a multibillion-dollar sector without getting into those nebulous areas. It’s part of the solution, not the whole solution.”

“Hemp has a legitimate opportunity to offer farmers better returns than canola, given time,” he said. “But we have to be sequential. We have to get there in steps.”

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A diverse range of speakers will be discussing key agricultural topics over three days at the event, to be held Jan. 20-22 at the Keystone Centre in Brandon. The presentations will take place at the Centre’s MNP and FCC theatres.

WHY IT MATTERS: The annual speaker schedule at Manitoba Ag Days 2026 will again include a mix of well-known personalities, key farm production and farm business knowledge sessions and more.

Organizers of the speaker series endeavour to stay current with the latest developments in ag, said Hannah Minshull, program committee lead for Manitoba Ag Days. However, agronomy is an evergreen subject.

“We try to touch on agronomy and weather and anything that’s relevant in the industry. It varies from year to year,” she said.

“In the last couple of years, geopolitics has sort of become a topic of interest, so we have had some geopolitical speakers. It just depends on what’s going on in the industry as to where we focus our attention.”

This year’s series will include six feature speakers. They are:

• Bryan Buhler, “Farming Simulator: an Opportunity to Learn and Discover”
  Jan. 20, 10:15-11 a.m., MNP Theatre
  Buhler, a mod creator for the popular Farming Simulator video game, will speak on how virtual farming can educate those unfamiliar with agriculture as well as offer something new to the well-versed. Those in attendance will have a chance to win one of five collector’s edition box sets of Farming Simulator for PCs.

• Sylvain Charlebois, “Feeding the Future”
  Jan. 20, 1:30-2:30 p.m., MNP Theatre
  Dalhousie University’s Sylvain Charlebois — known across Canada as “The Food Professor” — will explore how Canada can safeguard its food security while growing its competitiveness in a volatile world.

• Jacob Shapiro, “Geopolitics: What Lies Ahead?”
  Jan. 21, 11-12 a.m., FCC Theatre
  Shapiro, with Perch Perspectives LLC, will break down current global trends and the opportunities they may drive for Manitoba farmers.

• Greg Peterson, “Machinery Pete”
  Jan. 21, 3-4 p.m., FCC Theatre
  Peterson, considered one of the most trusted voices in farm equipment, will offer an insider’s look at the newest trends shaking up the ag equipment market.

• Val Caldwell, “Staying Secure in a Digital World”
  Jan. 22, 9:30-10:15 a.m., FCC Theatre
  Digital safety expert and independent consultant Val Caldwell will dive into the risks lurking online and the practical steps you can take to protect yourself and those around you.

• Fireside Chat with Arlene Dickinson
  Jan. 22, 2:30-3:30 p.m., FCC Theatre
  Dragons’ Den star Arlene Dickinson will share insights on the global competitiveness of Canadian-made products, building resilient domestic value chains and fostering consumer loyalty to local goods.

Dickinson is no stranger to agricultural commentary or investment. Speaking at the recent Canadian Agri-Food Policy Institute’s (CAPI) conference in Ottawa, she talked about the international opportunities available to Canadian agriculture.

“My pitch would be this is absolutely a marketplace and an industry and a sector that needs full attention and can provide gigantic return profiles to our country, not just financially, but from a social perspective as well,” she said.

“So, it really hits all the buttons. Why wouldn’t you invest in it?”

Getting Dickinson on the schedule was a coup for Manitoba Ag Days, said Minshull, who identified the fireside chat as one of the presentations she’s looking forward to the most.

“(She’s) someone that we have talked about having on our program for a few years, and just have never, ever been able to make it happen,” she said.

Although not among the featured speakers, Minshull is also excited about the return of producer Scott Day to the speaker series. He will present “The Sky is Falling and the Cows are Coming Home” where he will convey his takes on ag technology. It takes place Jan. 21, from 1-2 p.m., also in the FCC Theatre.

“He is a very well-known speaker for the agriculture industry, born and raised in southern Manitoba.

“That’s always good to have someone like that come back and connect with the ag industry.”

Panels and youth highlighted

Ag Days organizers are experimenting with the speaker formula this year, said Minshull. An example is the Manitoba Young Speakers for Agriculture, which starts at 8:45 a.m. on Jan. 20 at the MNP Theatre.

Virtual preliminary competitions will take place over December and January, with the top four in the junior (11-15-year-olds) and senior (16-24) categories presenting live at Ag Days. The winners will be announced during the morning session.

“The winner of each of those categories has the opportunity to go on to the national speaking competition in Toronto next November,” she said.

Also new this year are panels covering a wide range of subjects. They include:

• Verticillium Stripe: Because Farming Wasn’t Hard Enough Already
  Jan. 20, 10:15-11:30 a.m., FCC Theatre

• Farmer Panel: A Conversation About Farm Profitability
  Jan. 20, 1-2:30 p.m., FCC Theatre

• Chem Company Showdown
  Jan. 22, 10:15-1:15 a.m., FCC Theatre

• Beyond Data Transparency: How Industry Co-operation Improves Choice for Farmers
  Jan. 22, 11:15 a.m.-12:00 p.m., FCC Theatre

There will also be a screening of Deep Rooted on Jan. 21 from 4:45-6 p.m. in the MNP Theatre. This documentary explores the mental-health crisis facing agricultural producers across Canada. It follows four ag producers discussing their mental health and how it relates to farming.

For full show coverage, previews, video and more, check out the Manitoba Co-operator’s Ag Days landing page.

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The scientists, including the Brazilian professor who coined the term with colleagues around 15 years ago, argue that ultra-processed foods, or UPFs, are now increasingly common worldwide and linked to a decline in diet quality and a number of diseases, from obesity to cancer.

“It’s about the evidence we have today about … ultra-processed foods and human health,” Carlos Monteiro, professor at the University of Sao Paulo, said at an online briefing on Tuesday. “What we know right now justifies global public action.”

Processing and politics

UPFs are a class of food or drink made using processing techniques, additives and industrial ingredients, and mostly containing little whole foods. Examples include carbonated soft drinks or instant noodles.

While the term UPF has been used widely in recent years, some scientists, and the food industry, argue it is too simple, and the fight has become increasingly politicized.

The authors acknowledge criticisms in the Lancet series, saying more evidence is needed, particularly on why and how UPFs cause ill health, as well as on products with different nutritional values within the UPF class. But they say the signal is already strong enough for governments to take action.

In a systematic review of 104 long-term studies done for the series, 92 reported greater associated risks with one or more chronic diseases linked to UPF dietary patterns, and significant associations for 12 health conditions including Type 2 diabetes, obesity and depression.

Consumption rising

Most of these studies were only designed to show links, rather than direct causality, which the authors acknowledged. But they said the situation needed to be addressed while more data was gathered, not least because consumption of UPFs is rising worldwide as a share of the diet, to above 50 per cent in countries like the United States.

The three papers in the series, funded by Bloomberg Philanthropies, also outline ways to tackle the problem, such as adding UPFs into national policies on foods that are high in fat, sugar or salt. But they cautioned that the UPF industry is the biggest barrier to tackling the issue.

The International Food and Beverage Alliance, an organization representing major multinational food and beverage companies, said its members also wanted to improve global health outcomes through diet quality, and food companies should be part of policymaking.

“The policy and advocacy recommendations of this series go far beyond the available evidence,” said Secretary-General Rocco Renaldi, arguing there was a risk of reducing the availability of affordable, shelf-stable options globally.

— Reporting by Jennifer Rigby in London

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More Americans are expected to try the drugs as a pill rather than as a shot because the medication will be cheaper and many patients are hesitant to inject themselves.

The U.S. Food and Drug Administration approved Novo Nordisk’s Wegovy GLP-1 pill on Monday, sending shares of food companies down on Tuesday. Eli Lilly’s rival medication is expected to gain approval from regulators next year.

Shifts in consumer taste

Food companies including Conagra Brands and Nestle are already dealing with shifts in consumer tastes toward higher protein and smaller portions due to the popularity of weight-loss injections, and analysts believe widespread GLP-1 adoption could mean long-term changes in demand.

To cope, businesses are promoting products with more protein, tweaking labeling to say they are GLP-1 friendly and working with large retailers to better market products.

“We are seeing people cut (back) specifically on salty snacks, liquor, soda, drinks, and bakery snacks, and more focused on protein and fiber, so we expect food companies and also restaurants to cater to this audience that is growing,” said JP Frossard, consumer foods analyst at Rabobank.

“We’ll see more access to those drugs and a higher addressable market for products that have in mind the needs of the GLP-1 user,” he said.

Andrew Rocco, stock strategist at Zacks Investment Research, called Novo’s approval “groundbreaking” because the pill would be cheaper than the injectable version of Wegovy and deliver the same weight-loss metrics. “High protein, smaller portions, and functional food innovation will be necessary,” he said.

Food companies are taking note

Some 40 per cent of American adults are obese, U.S. government data shows, and around 12 per cent of adults say they currently take GLP-1 drugs, according to a poll published last month by health policy research organization KFF.

Households using GLP-1 medications cut spending at grocery stores by 5.3 per cent and fast-food restaurants by about 8 per cent on average, according to a Cornell Research study published last week that used purchase data collected by Numerator from about 150,000 households.

Those reductions largely faded when households stopped using the medication.

“The decreases we saw will likely show up in a much broader slice of the population” because of weight-loss pills, said Sylvia Hristakeva, one of the study’s co-authors. She said the cheaper price and ease of use of pills will also make it likely that people use the medication for longer.

While the Cornell study found modest increases to spending only in a handful of categories like yogurt and fresh fruit, companies are taking note.

‘GLP-friendly’ foods

Earlier this year, Conagra started labeling some of its Healthy Choice frozen meals with high protein and fiber as “GLP-1 friendly.” A spokesperson said those meals are selling faster than rival products making similar claims on their packaging. The company plans to introduce new Healthy Choice recipes with the same labeling in May and work with grocers like Walmart and Kroger to market them, the spokesperson said.

French dairy company Danone, which makes Oikos Greek yogurt, said in a statement that it is seeing double-digit growth in its high-protein offerings, a trend that has accelerated with the adoption of GLP-1 medications.

Nestle, the world’s biggest food company, has also introduced new frozen meals that cater specifically to GLP-1 users, called Vital Pursuit. The Swiss company did not respond to a request for comment.

Fast-casual Mexican chain Chipotle on Tuesday added a “High Protein Menu” that features, among other items, a single cup of chicken or steak.

In recent months, some restaurant chains including Olive Garden have added menu items for smaller, cheaper portions.

Noodles & Company marketing head Stephen Kennedy said such menu additions were about offering guests “options that satisfy without going overboard.”

— Additional reporting by Savyata Mishra in Bengaluru

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Without predictable, commodity-style markets, industry leaders believe the crop can expand only as processors add capacity. That bottleneck, they said, has worked to keep Canada’s hemp acres flat and is limiting long-term growth.

WHY IT MATTERS: A contract-bound crop leaves growers with limited room to respond to new market opportunities.

At the Canadian Hemp Trade Alliance (CHTA) annual conference in Winnipeg in late November, it reported about 50,000 acres of hemp grown in 2024.

That number might be low, said CHTA senior operations director Clarence Shwaluk in his state-of-the-industry address. He expects acres are under-reported through Health Canada’s licensing system. He urged the association’s 213 producer members to ensure they submit accurate data.

“Even if you had zero acres and you’re still holding a valid licence, Health Canada wants to know that there were no acres planted,” he said.

Where’s Canada’s hemp?

Most hemp today is grown on the Prairies, and it’s still mostly driven by demand for grain. CHTA estimated, farm-gate hemp sales sit around $60 million a year, with the broader economic footprint, including value-added food and fibre processing, reaching roughly $160 million.

It remains well short of the organization’s long-term aspiration of building a billion-dollar sector. That goal was set several years ago, more as a directional target than a forecast.

Ted Haney, CHTA president and chief executive officer, said moving meaningfully toward that scale will require structural change.

“We’re a ‘build it and they will come’ industry, based on contractual relationships with unique specifications,” he said, adding that broader uptake won’t occur until hemp moves closer to a commoditized model with predictable purchasing channels.

“We’ll get there, but we’re not there yet.”

On the food side, hemp hearts, protein and oil continue to make up the bulk of revenue. Haney said the largest growth potential lies in processed ingredients like baking inputs, frying oils, protein blends and nutrition-boosting additives, areas where Canada is still in the early stages of development.

Cost competitiveness remains a major barrier. Hemp protein is still priced above pea and soy, limiting adoption by large processors. Yield improvements through hybridization are viewed as a key step toward lowering ingredient costs. Higher yields could also get more farmers interested in the crop, added Shwaluk.

“Every food crop requires a feed market. Without that, it’s a barrier to entry,” said Haney, noting that canola crushers rely heavily on moving meal into feed channels.

Fibre remains a bright spot, with new processing capacity under construction in Western Canada and growing interest in hemp-based building materials. For that to grow the hemp market though, they would need to be considered in building codes. The CHTA is tackling that along with the National Research Council and industry partners.

Hemp growth expected to be steady

Hemp’s outlook is stable, both Haney and Shawluk said. As for growth, a new national levy is expected to play a role. The Canadian Industrial Hemp Promotion-Research Agency — operating publicly as Hemp Canada Chanvre — was formally established last year.

The agency will collect a 0.5 per cent levy on hemp sales to fund research, standards development and market promotion — a more stable source of funding than the voluntary contributions the sector has relied on to date.

In addition, Haney and Shwaluk noted that demand for food and fibre ingredients continues to grow and new revenue streams, such as livestock feed and bio-based industrial products, are expected to diversify markets over the next several years.

“We can scale up, that’s not the problem,” Shwaluk said. “Doing it competitively, and with the right regulatory structure, is what will determine how fast we grow.”

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