The Food Ecosystems Project (FEP) was initiated in partnership with Food and Beverage Manitoba and Community Futures Manitoba, with support from industry partners Fireweed Food Co-op, Manitoba Agriculture, EDIT (Economic Development Investment and Trade), amongst others. Utilizing an industry-led, partnered approach, our goal was to understand why many small and medium sized enterprises (SMEs) in Manitoba’s agri-food industry struggle to succeed, fail to grow, and what supports are needed to ensure a vibrant, resilient, and thriving agri-food system in our Province. The focus of our project was on SMEs because despite the perception that this sector is dominated by large multinational enterprises (MNE), most agri-food entrepreneurs in Manitoba are SMEs with 1-10 employees.

The Food Ecosystems Project focuses on the exploration and mobilization of Food Incubation, Innovation and Production Hubs that provide flexible, adaptable services to entrepreneurs. We envision a centralized Hub connected to a series of smaller interconnected hubs (spokes) throughout the Province, bringing together entrepreneurs, artisans, growers, fishers and ranchers. The hubs will house services that assist SMEs to navigate the unique product development, commercialization, marketing, regulatory and financing environments characteristic of the food and agriculture sector. The vision is to use hubs to provide shared access to ingredients and packaging, costly equipment, storage facilities and processing capabilities, as well as offering mentorship and business development expertise to enable smart risk taking and innovation within a supportive environment.