Investing in Ontario’s Small Agri-Food Businesses for Food Safety and Growth
September 16, 2025
July 11th, 2025
Thunder Bay – The governments of Canada and Ontario are supporting Superior Foods in Thunder Bay. The business will receive up to $75,000 to implement a traceability ERP system with bar code scanning to improve traceability and allow better control and tracking of food, including the tracking of sourced goods that they process in-house through the Food Safety and Growth Initiative, which aims to help small businesses in the agriculture and food industry enhance their food safety systems and stimulate growth.
The governments of Canada and Ontario are investing up to $4.4 million, through the Sustainable Canadian Agricultural Partnership (Sustainable CAP), to help small businesses in the agriculture and food industry improve their food safety systems and stimulate growth.
Kevin Holland, MPP for Thunder Bay – Atikokan, welcomes this announcement as the Food Safety and Growth Initiative is helping eligible food processors, producers and service providers to improve food safety systems, adopt new food safety and traceability equipment, technologies and standards and provide related food safety training to employees. The funding will also enable operators to respond to market and consumer demands and grow their business.
“By supporting Superior Foods through the Food Safety and Growth Initiative, our government is taking bold steps to protect Ontario’s agri-food sector and foster prosperity in Thunder Bay,” said The Hon. Kevin Holland, MPP for Thunder Bay – Atikokan “ This investment empowers local businesses to enhance food safety, adopt cutting-edge technologies, and create good-paying jobs. Together, we’re building a stronger, more competitive agri-food industry that delivers safe, world-class products to our communities and beyond.”
“Our government continues to invest to strengthen the safety and quality of our world-class food products,” said Trevor Jones, Ontario Minister of Agriculture, Food and Agribusiness. “The Food Safety and Growth Initiative will help Ontario to further increase and diversify our agri-food exports to new markets, while strengthening the long-term competitiveness and growth of our local agri-food champions.”
“Superior Foods is committed to help grow the local and regional meat industry, and to create jobs that are meaningful to our community.” said Luis Alves, Owner of Superior Foods “Already, we have been able to hire new people to help develop and implement our new traceability software and food safe processes. And as our capacity to bring quality, locally raised meat products to consumers grows, we hope to bring on even more people who share our vision of a strong local meat and meat processing industry in the northwest.”
The Food Safety and Growth Initiative will help achieve the goals laid out in the Grow Ontario Strategy including strengthening the stability and competitiveness of the province’s agri-food supply chain. Ontario’s robust food safety systems are key to the industry’s growth. This initiative was open to food businesses with fewer than 100 employees at the project site and will contribute to the businesses’ ability to build consumer confidence, and enable growth by supporting investments to detect, prevent and mitigate food safety risks and adopt new standards.
This initiative is funded through the Sustainable Canadian Agricultural Partnership (Sustainable CAP), a five-year, $3.5-billion investment by federal, provincial and territorial governments to strengthen competitiveness, innovation, and resiliency of Canada’s agriculture, agri‐food and agri‐based products sector. This includes $1 billion in federal programs and activities and a $2.5-billion commitment that is cost-shared 60 per cent federally and 40 per cent provincially/territorially for programs that are designed and delivered by provinces and territories.