Up to $100K Available to Canadian SME's within the food and beverage industry advancing food innovation

Funded by the Canadian Food Innovation Network (CFIN), the Innovation Booster Program is a grant funding program that offers rapid support on a cost-shared basis to enable SMEs within the food and beverage industry to advance their food innovation and research outcomes. The goal of this program is to assist companies in overcoming barriers that lead to commercialized innovation outcomes.

The three CFIN innovation priorities for projects are:

• Smart Product and Process Development
• Food Ecosystem Sustainability
• Agile and Safe Supply Chains

Eligible Projects

• Smart Product and Process Development innovation projects includes development and innovation in the areas of:  
• • Health, nutrition & wellness benefits  

• • New robotics applications to increase productivity, food safety and worker safety 
  • AI, sensors, machine learning and big data to improve efficiencies 
  • Emerging science such as cultured protein
    
    
• Food Ecosystem Sustainability innovation includes development and innovation across areas such as:  
• • Higher value recovery
  • Circularity and upcycling 
  • Green and smart packaging
  • More efficient use of inputs including energy, water and carbon
  • Food waste reduction

Eligible Costs

Eligible costs include expenditures related to the following activities:  

• Industrial research, including activities related to the discovery of new knowledge that aims to support the development of new technology-driven products, processes or services at early stage technology readiness level
• Large-scale technology demonstration, including the advancement and development of new technologies into product-specific applications at mid-to-late stage technology readiness level

Eligible Applicants

• Canadian Small or Medium Enterprises (SMEs) within the food and beverage industry
  • SME: A business with 499 or fewer employees and less than $50 million in gross revenues  

Funding Details

• The total eligible project costs should be between $20,000 and $200,000
• The maximum level of matching funding from CFIN will be 50% of total eligible project costs; between $10,000 and $100,000
• Stacking is possible with other government funding to a maximum of 75% of total eligible project costs
• Upon approval, a non-refundable project management fee of 5% of total project costs is required payable to CFIN