Grants for Food and Beverage Guidebook
Why do I want a food and beverage grant for my small business?

Summary

• The Food & Beverage sector is one of the largest manufacturing industries in Canada and there is lots of available funding to go around.
• Government grants can help you hire or train staff, expedite product development, and expand to new markets.
• Governments want your business to use grant funding so you can accelerate the growth of your business.

Food & Beverage businesses in Canada, like other countries, tend to operate with small margins. This is in part due to the fluctuating cost of resources, and rising labour costs. This is why government funding is important in the food industry. Not only does government funding provide support for businesses to hire and expand, but there are programs that serve to push the industry forward to embrace new technologies and sustainability practices. Best of all, government funding is non-dilutive, which means you don’t have to give up any ownership in exchange for the funding. 

If you’re new to grants, you could be leveraging government grants and low (or no) interest loans to hire new talent, advance product development, launch new products, expand to new  markets, and shift to green production practices. Here’s a look at the core grant types for Food and  Beverage businesses, and how you can use them. 

Hiring

Hiring grant programs are meant to assist businesses that are looking to hire new staff and grow their personnel. This type of grant funding usually comes in the form of wage subsidies, where the granting program will reimburse a business for a designated percentage of an employee’s earnings up to a maximum dollar value. While large hiring grant programs for companies in any industry exist at both the provincial and federal levels, there are also Food & Beverage specific hiring grant programs. 

Training

It’s no doubt that businesses are constantly looking for ways to improve the talent, technique, and skill of their staff. But did you know that there are grant programs to help you do that? Training grants are given to businesses that want to enrol their current employees in training to improve their knowledge, expertise, and overall skillset. Many specific manufacturing training grant programs can be used by Food & Beverage businesses for staff development at all levels.

Market Expansion

Does your Food & Beverage business want to expand to the United States? How about Europe or Asia? Good news, the federal and provincial governments also want you to expand. The government is always looking to increase Canadian exports and different grant programs have been set up to support you. A well-composed application could secure over $50,000 to offset the costs associated with travel, advertising, consultation, translation, market research, and more. That these applications take time to write and are a lot of work to complete as they are very competitive, but the reward is well worth the work. 

Research and Development

Within the Food & Beverage and Agricultural Manufacturing sector, there are a number of different research and development grants available to businesses that are looking to develop their product and/or improve their business model. Every year hundreds of Food & Beverage small businesses are awarded millions of dollars in grant funding to research new ways to make their product healthier, contribute to the carbon-neutral agenda, or have a greater social impact on their communities. Could your business be the next to obtain funding?

Assurance

The Food & Beverage sector, unlike other industries, has grants for assurance. Assurance programs serve to integrate assurance systems into the operations of small businesses to address market and regulatory requirements. Assurance systems enable businesses to make credible claims about the manner in which products are produced. The most common certifications for Food & Beverage businesses include GMP, SQF, GFSI, and HACCP. If your business is interested in obtaining any of these certifications, you could be eligible for grant funding!