The Canadian Food Innovation Network (CFIN) and Ontario Genomics are pleased to announce Canada’s first regional cellular agriculture competition, AcCELLerate-ON.
This $700,000 program is designed to spark food innovation and will support the research and development of viable food production methods including cell culture, precision fermentation, tissue engineering, scaffolding and hybridizing production capabilities.
“This competition is an exciting boost to ensure innovative cellular agriculture technologies get closer to market in Ontario and the world,” says Bettina Hamelin, PharmD, President and Chief Executive Officer at Ontario Genomics.
Cellular agriculture food innovation can incorporate proteins, enzymes, flavour molecules, vitamins, pigments, and fats into existing products to create new value-added goods. As well, cellular agriculture food innovation can create a wide variety of food produced through precision fermentation including dairy, eggs, chocolate, honey, and vanilla, and cultivated food products such as poultry, seafood, and pet food.
“Canada has an up to $12.5 billion a year food innovation opportunity on the horizon. Making sure promising companies and academics receive the right support at the right time can catalyze Ontario’s leadership and create over 140,000 jobs nationwide,” adds Hamelin.
The AcCELLerate-ON program is open to Ontario-led innovators and collaborative teams with genomics and engineering biology-enabled proposals, to address industry and other end-user identified challenges within and across the Ontario cellular agriculture, food, and beverage ecosystems.
Applications are being accepted until February 28th, 2022. The 12–18-month project will start on May 1st, 2022.