Regina-based Protein Industries Canada is looking for companies that can blend pulses and cereals to create new food products and ingredients.

Lisa Campbell, Senior Director of Programs at Protein Industries Canada, says the purpose of the call for Expression of Interests (EOI) is to meet consumer demand for more innovative ways to incorporate protein and fibre in diets.

“The areas that we see are things like baked goods, snack food items, also products like pasta, noodles…so those are the areas we’re mainly seeing demand for and potential for projects coming in.” Campbell said.

In addition, they’re looking for projects that focus on cereals such as wheat and barley. Campbell says one reason is simply not too many projects have focused on those two cereal crops, though they’ve had a few projects involving oats for products like alternative dairy and creamers.

“We’ve had some companies come in with some interest but haven’t had any projects come through so just doing more outreach and making sure that the cereals industry knows that we’re here and that we’re very open to projects coming in through this call.”

The organization is looking to invest $10-million into these projects, with successful applicants eligible for a reimbursement of up to 45 per cent of project costs.

There are some changes to the criteria for this particular call for EOI’s. Projects now require at least two collaborators rather than three and one of those collaborators must be a Canadian small-to-medium sized business, also known as SME’s. Campbell says the reason for that is it would be odd to have two Consumer Packaged Goods (CPG) companies to be working together, especially if they’re competitive.

“Some of our CPG companies will come to us with great project ideas but have one strong collaborator but not two, so we see this as allowing some really interesting Canadian SME’s to enter our ecosystem with really good collaborations with just one other company.” Campbell explained. “The other area that we’re seeing that is actually a big priority for us is co-product usage, so any of our ingredient companies using any other co-products such as the starch and the fibre and so on. When they’re doing a project, specifically to their co-products, it’s harder for them to attract more than one collaborator, so that is a priority area for us – we’ve seen some strong project ideas come in, so we want to be getting that bar to the point where all of these companies with great projects can make it into us and we can get them into our ecosystem.”

The deadline for companies to submit an expression of interest is January 16, 2025. Campbell says it gives companies who are new to the process time to get their projects together, but they’re willing to review any application that is submitted before the deadline.

Companies that are interested in this venture can visit proteinindustriescanada.ca/technology and can fill out the form located at the bottom of the page. If the project meets the initial requirements a member of Protein Industries Canada will reach out to schedule a preliminary meeting.