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The Sky’s the Limit: The Viability of Canada’s Food Economy

The Conference Board of Canada, 70 pages, December 2012
Report by Michael Burt, Erin Butler, Michael Grant, Jean-Charles Le Vallée
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This report explores the viability of Canada’s food economy. It considers the industry, company, plant, and farm viability that, while achieving commercial success, address the nutritional needs of Canadians.

Document Highlights

The Sky’s the Limit explores the viability of Canada’s food economy. It considers the industry, company, plant, and farm viability that, while achieving commercial success, address the nutritional needs of Canadians. The report draws on a variety of sources, including a thorough review of the relevant literature; data from the Centre for Food in Canada’s proprietary surveys: the Industry Survey and the Household Survey; and the extensive use of other data sources, most notably from Statistics Canada. The report also highlights four examples of innovative and adaptable Canadian food companies whose viability support many jobs, and contribute to the wealth and standard of living of large numbers of Canadians and communities. It concludes with six suggestions for improving the viability of Canada’s food economy.

Table of Contents

Executive Summary

Chapter 1—Introduction

Chapter 2—Dimensions of Viability

  • What Is Viability?
  • Layers of Viability
  • Consumers’ Insecurity About Viability
  • How Do We Know If the Food Economy Is “Viable”?
  • Challenges to Viability
  • Responding to the Challenges

Chapter 3—Understanding Industry Viability

  • The Context: The World Food Economy
  • Overall Strategic Positioning
  • Crop and Animal Producers
  • Agriculture: Industry Viability Versus Firm Viability
  • Food Manufacturing
  • Outlook for Food Manufacturing Slow and Steady
  • Food Manufacturing: Industry Viability Versus Firm Viability
  • Food Retailing
  • Outlook for Food Retailing: Slower But Steady
  • Food Retailing: Industry Viability Versus Firm Viability

Chapter 4—Viability Through Management

  • Strategy 1: Grow Through International Acquisition: Alimentation Couche-Tard
  • Strategy 2: Partner With Capital: One Earth Farms
  • Strategy 3: Forward Integrate: Sunterra Farm Enterprises Ltd
  • Strategy 4: Adding Value to Commodities: Saputo Inc.
  • Conclusion

Chapter 5—Viability Through Policy

  • A Brief History of Income Support
  • Canada’s Current Agricultural Policy
  • Viability Through Program Payments
  • Political Risk Maintained
  • Reforms Needed
  • Conclusion

Chapter 6—Enhancing Viability

  1. Improve Firm and Farm Performance by Enhancing Management Capacity
  2. Reform Government Support Programs
  3. Move Industry to Markets, Channel Spending to Address Public Interest Issues
  4. Expand the Sources of Capital
  5. Borrow Approaches From Other Sectors to Expand Internationally
  6. Improve Canadians’ Economic Literacy

Appendix A—Bibliography

Appendix B—Canada’s Agricultural and Food Export Picture

Reviews

Mandeep Mavi -  April 29, 2013
 
Terry Daynard -  March 9, 2013
Food industry insight seems fairly good - though somewhat in conflict with a recent CAPI report on industry competitiveness. However, the agricultural coverage is rather superficial and contains a number of notable errors and dubious conclusions with respect to commodity competitiveness, financial capacity, rationale for industry transformation, and potential for global expansion in productivity and arable acreage - maybe trade too.
 
Betty Jagodnik -  February 4, 2013
 
Marco Fok -  February 4, 2013
 
David Groux -  February 4, 2013
 
Jody Grywul -  January 22, 2013
well written and informative article on Canada's food industry
 
Albert Chambers -  January 14, 2013
Management and capital are important, but the agri-food sector's ongoing infrastructure needs are more complex and include: strong domestic centres of excellence in food safety, innovation, product quality, a sufficient supply of competent technical and management employees, etc.
 
Luc Chartrand -  January 11, 2013
 
Doreen Ridley -  January 2, 2013
 
Alana McDonald -  December 17, 2012
 
Lars Eedy -  December 12, 2012
Very interesting read. Excellent potential as educational tool for building Canadian students' awareness and literacy of the food sector and economy.
 
Katia Caporiccio -  December 12, 2012
Very interesting report about the viability of the food economy in Canada. I was especially interested in the surveys conducted about Canadians' opinions on whether the country will be able to feed its people based on increased consumption and projected population increases.
 
Alexandre Ruel-Bourassa -  December 11, 2012
 
Connie Nelson -  December 7, 2012
Excellent and forward thinking insights into Canada's future relationship with food both domestic and exports.
 
Carl Palin -  December 6, 2012
Very interesting to see the numerous opportunities of this market that cannot threat us. With the demographic context, it just cannot go down!

Thanks!
 
Greg Thomas -  December 5, 2012
 
Jeff Timmons -  December 5, 2012
Insightful report. I was curious about the statement “Low-income Canadians spend proportionally more on food than the average household does” and will be interested in reading the forthcoming report on food security which reviews the above statement in detail.
 
Jatinbhai Patel -  December 4, 2012
 
Katie Burns -  December 4, 2012
Very helpful report
 
Sen Wang -  December 4, 2012
I am impressed with the high quality of this report. It is a topical issue for Canadian policy makers. The structure of the report is clear and easy to follow. The economic analysis is supported by well researched facts. Good job.
 
Sasha Tregebov -  December 4, 2012
 
Richard Danis -  December 4, 2012
 
Benson Szeto -  December 4, 2012
 
Patrick Byrne -  December 4, 2012
Reasoned and timely analysis.  
 
Tom Gibson -  December 3, 2012
Very insightful report.
 
Jennifer Lester -  December 3, 2012
Interesting!  
 
Bill Renfro -  December 3, 2012
Excellent information and very timely. Food is the source of life and we will never stop eating. let's eat Canadian!
 
Andrea Klimpel -  December 3, 2012
 

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The Sky’s the Limit: The Viability of Canada’s Food EconomyRating:4.107142 out of5based on28 reviews.