A new $16-million Saskatchewan Food Industry Development Centre (Food Centre) is being financed, in part, by Growing Forward 2, a federal-provincial-territorial initiative. The new 30,000-square-foot facility will expand the province’s food ingredient processing sector, housing product development, specialized laboratory services, extrusion technology, interim capacity and more.

Growing Forward 2 will provide the largest funding for the project ($9-million). Western Economic Diversification Canada and various food industry investors, as well as the Food Centre’s capital replacement fund, will cover the remaining balance ($4.2-million and $2.5-million, respectively).

“Saskatchewan’s agriculture sector will achieve long term benefits directly from this investment by increasing our ability to expand global market opportunities in value-added processing,” says Dan Prefontaine, President of the Food Centre. “The Food Centre’s new agri-food innovation centre will support innovation and technology through enhanced expertise, training and commercialization resources to assist our industry in accessing markets with new products and services.”

Construction of the new centre will begin this spring and is slated for completion in 2017.