On April 19, Plant-Based Foods of Canada hosted members, industry partners, and leaders at our inaugural Growing Opportunities conference, held at the Maple Leaf ThinkFOODS Culinary Centre in Mississauga. The day was packed with interesting speaker sessions, discussion panels, and opportunities for members to connect.
For those who couldn’t attend, I wanted to share a recap of the day’s events:
The day was kicked off by Adam Grogan, President of Greenleaf Foods who welcomed everyone and challenged attendees with the question of why Maple Leaf Foods – Canada’s largest meat company – would host a plant-based foods conference. It’s a great question. The answer, Adam explained, is that sustainability is central to MLF’s future, and that especially includes plant-based foods as the market for proteins evolves.
The first speaker session of the day, A Significant Moment: The Importance of Plant-Based Foods, featured well-known speaker and author Brian Kateman, Co-Founder and President of the Reducetarian Foundation. Brian spoke about the reducetarian movement and how it began for him as a way to align his personal ethics with his actions. He spoke about the many ways that consumers can implement a reducetarian diet (spoiler alert: it’s easier than they think!) and addressed many of the misconceptions that prevent consumers from taking the first steps. Brian challenged our industry to present pragmatic plant-based food solutions for consumers, and not to lose sight of the fact that we are all on the same team, in so many ways.
Murad Al-Katib, President & CEO of AGT Food & Ingredients, then framed the Plant-Based Opportunity for us. Murad spoke of his own beginnings in the industry, and how he recognized the potential in Canadian-grown pulses. Now the world’s largest pulse processor, Murad has been instrumental in growing the Canadian plant-based protein revolution from a single facility in Saskatchewan. Murad presented attendees with some hard truths, including a call to think about the entire planet’s food needs. “In the next 40 years,” he noted, “we have to grow us much food as the first 10,000 years of civilization”. It’s a sobering thought, and a profound challenge for our industry. Murad went on to talk about the factors driving adoption of plant-based foods, and how the next generation of consumers are motivated by new factors, like environmental sustainability. Murad left us with a powerful reminder that Canada is perfectly suited to be a global agri-food powerhouse, given our geography, available investment capital, rapid technology adoption, and stable governance.
After a brief networking break, Jane Adylina, Head of Own Brand Marketing, Fresh Categories & Plant Based for Tesco, examined the major UK grocer’s experience rolling out plant-based foods to consumers in the More Than a North American Movement: Learning from Other Markets session. Jane explained that Tesco first started noting a real uptick in searches and consumer requests for plant-based foods in 2017. As Tesco searched for ways to address that demand, they launched their in-house brand, Wicked Kitchen, in 2018. By 2021, Jane noted, Tesco was selling over 200 own-brand PB lines. Jane also explained Tesco’s brand architecture for its PB product lines, which aim to serve everyone from devoted foodies to casual consumers. Jane also showed us some great examples of Tesco’s strategy to create “destinations” for PB food next to conventional sets.
Spring boarding off the previous presentation, Michael Lines (CEO & President of Simply Protein & PBFC Advisory Board Chair) led a panel discussion with Charles Buhagiar (Sr. Category Manager at Metro) Stacey Kravitz (President, UNFI Canada), and Adam Grogan. These high-profile industry players reflected on what is working in Canada, challenges and a general confidence that the sector is maturing. The panelists spoke about the opportunity to grow the Canadian PB industry sustainably, continually innovate our products and technologies and making products accessible for consumers.
The afternoon sessions kicked off with a panel called The Need for Regulatory Modernization: Making Plant-Based Foods Available. In this session, Murad Al-Katib, Chris Marinangeli (Regulatory Director, Protein Industries of Canada), Michi Furuya Chang (SVP Policy & Reg. Affairs, Food Health & Consumer Products of Canada), and Gowlings WLG Partner Lewis Retik enjoyed a lively discussion. They spoke about the difficulties resulting from a lack of cohesiveness and interests across government. They tackled the sticky subject of cross-border logistics, and how a lack of harmonization between Canada and the U.S. makes things harder for Canada’s plant-based sector. We also heard that research is critical to making change and that projects are underway to help address our efforts.
Jennifer Manavi (SVP at NielsenIQ) and Thea Bourianne (Sr. Manager, Data Strategy & Solutions Label Insights) presented exciting new industry data for attendees in the Plant-Based by the Numbers: Hot Off the Press Research session. NIQ works in partnership with PBFC to generate data insights on issues of importance. Here are just some of their key insights:
· The market is healthy: Plant Based foods are a $990M industry in Canada, growing at about 5% (vs Y.A.)*;
· The market is growing: Most PB categories saw growth, even as Canadians bought a little less food overall due to the inflationary environment;
· The market is resilient: The largest categories (‘Soy & Rice & Alternative beverages’, and ‘Tofu and Alt. Meat, Dairy Alternatives’) didn’t lose customers last year, despite reduced overall grocery purchases; and
· Opportunities abound: As just one example, there may be opportunities for plant-based food sales online, as that’s a place where Canadians typically over index on PB purchases versus in other channels.
Encouragingly, we heard that Canadians feel they have more choices than ever before. From my perspective, that means our industry is perfectly positioned to be able to provide plant-based options for every shopping occasion.
Next up was a panel discussion entitled Leading During Inflationary Times. This discussion featured Jeremy Oxley (SVP Marketing & Ecommerce at Danone), Alicia Liebregts (Managing Partner, The Hatchery Marketing Group, Chloe Efthyvoloulos (Head of Industry, TikTok), and Polina Rodgers (Food & Beverage Partnerships Canada, Pinterest). The industry experts spoke about the ways brands can explore trends and happenings in social media, and build brand equity with their digital communications. Our panel participants also spoke about how the amount of data available to marketers has never been greater. That data – when combined with creativity and a sense of fun – unlocks enormous potential for brands (especially the smaller ones) to explain their offering to consumers.
As we hoped, the final session of the day, Pushing the Envelope: Innovation to Meet Consumer Demand, closed the conference on a high note. Blair Bullus (President Top Tier Foods) spoke first about his developed-in-Japan plant-based Wagyu and his company’s strategy of working through food service channels before exploring retail. Aamir Malkani (Founder and CEO, Plant up) explained his inspiration for Plant Up, speaking eloquently about the power of food to connect human beings and cultures. He discussed how he innovated (using Canadian proteins) to develop great tasting internationally inspired recipes, and mentioned the great deal of support he received from the Canadian Industry in the process. The “O.G.” of Canadian plant-based foods, Yves Potvin, spoke last. Yves detailed his journey (which, incredibly, began in 1985) from starting Yves Veggie Cuisine, to founding Gardein, to launching his third major startup, the buzzy new Konscious Foods. He outlined Konscious’s mission and its new products, and explained his aggressive plans for widespread retail availability.
So, there you have it. That was a very short summary of the Growing Opportunities conference. It’s hard to imagine we fit all that into one day, but somehow we managed!
When the conference was over, I found myself reflecting (as I mentioned in my introductory remarks) about how Plant-Based Foods of Canada started in 2017 as just three people seated around a boardroom table, thinking about how we could present this emerging industry to policymakers and stakeholders. It’s amazing to now think of hosting such a robust, well-attended conference, sharing Big Ideas about the next decade ahead of us. What a journey it’s been! To all our PBFC members, stakeholders, and industry participants, thank you for making the 2023 Growing Opportunities conference event such a success.
PBFC members can download a copy of the event slides here.
*Looking at the same categories PBFC tracked last year. Note that 4 additional categories will be added in the next two weeks, increasing this number.