What is the Canadian Food Industry?
The Canadian Food Industry is no small fish. Canada is the fifth largest global food exporting nation, and domestically speaking food and beverage processing makes up the country’s second biggest manufacturing industry. Indeed, most provinces count the food industry as one of the most important cogs in their economic engines.
The country manufactures, prepares and packages a host of industry products including beverages, baked goods, animal foods, fruits and vegetables, seafood and confectionary products. However, the crown jewel of the Canadian Food Industry is meat product manufacturing, which accounted for a cool quarter of all shipments in 2014. Other prime industries include dairy product manufacturing, as well as grain and oilseed milling.
A Decade of Challenges
Despite being one of the global food export powerhouses, the Canadian food industry has dealt with multiples bumps and barriers over the last decade. The global economic crisis of the last decade has triggered everything from a fluctuating Canadian dollar, loss of labour productivity, historically low interest rates across the world and a growth in foreign competition. Beyond this, aging infrastructure is another source of anxiety for investors in a time belt-tightening and economic and political uncertainty.
A Year of Change
Although most industries have struggled with similar problems, the last year or so has demonstrated that Canada’s food and beverage manufacturing industry is emerging from the ashes in better shape than ever. Indeed, despite the challenges faced by the industry, average monthly employment saw a slight increase over the past decade, hovering at about 17 percent in 2015. Global exports also increased in that same time frame by about 4.5 percent. The third quarter of 2016 also saw food manufacturing profits increase by 22 percent, just as consumer confidence shot up in November of that same year.
Food Manufacturing and Metal-Detecting Technology
From the baker churning out macarons in every colour of the rainbow at your local French patisserie to the technicians building increasingly sophisticated industrial metal detectors at Fortress Technology or what have you, 1 in 8 Canadians are employed in some capacity by the food industry. The growth of food and beverage manufacturing in particular beckons the need for safety conditions to remain just as stringent, as increased quantity should never be acquired at the price of decreased quality.
Nobody wants to bite into a macaron with a metal surprise hidden away in the ganache centre. Yet at every step of the macaron’s production lies the risk of unwanted metal contaminants sneaking their way in, given that metal machinery is used widely throughout the processing of raw ingredients. As such, food grade metal detectors are one of the many quality control mechanisms required at the industrial manufacturing level in order to reduce the chances of metal particles contaminating products.
Contaminants come in many forms, and can be solid, liquid or gaseous. Metal contaminants include non-ferrous metals like aluminum, copper, brass, lead and zinc just to name a few. Stainless steel and ferrous metals such as cast iron and carbon steel are also frequent sources of contamination. Different types of detectors exist to handle different types of contaminants, and metal detectors generally come in two categories: balanced coil detectors and ferrous-in-foil detectors, both of which handle different types of metals.
Without metal detectors and other protection measures put into place, the food and beverage production process can put countless people at risk of illness and injury, in addition to exposing companies to lawsuits and loss of reputation. These safety precautions are particularly important in Canada, due to the size of the country’s export markets and the importance of the industry at a domestic level.
Outlook
Given the industry’s performance these past few years, there is no doubt that Canada’s food manufacturing industry is one area of the country’s economy that is performing better than ever, despite the economic challenges of the last decade. More than 2.3 million Canadians are linked to the food industry in some capacity today, a rare feat in a country where mechanization has led to a decrease of 22 percent in other industries’ manufacturing jobs since 2004. So long as safety remains a priority alongside annual growth, the industry has a lot to recommend itself at present time.
Summary
This short article has given a snapshot of the Canadian Food Industry. Following a brief presentation of the nation’s major food industries was an overview of some major economic challenges of the past ten years. An outline of important changes was also given, in addition to a discussion stressing the importance of maintaining food safety standards alongside growth.