NEW
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McCain Foods Limited
Florenceville, New Brunswick-based McCain Foods Limited
produces a wide variety of high-quality food products,
exports those products globally, and has a well-established
presence and long history in the Province of New Brunswick.
The company employs approximately 1,300 people in New
Brunswick operating out of several food production and R&D
facilities in both the Florenceville-Bristol area, as well as in
Grand Falls.
In 2014, McCain Foods recognized the need to leverage its New
Brunswick footprint to become more competitive and accelerate
its innovation pipeline to meet the demands from their retail
and foodservice customers. The company sought to assure
customers that innovative new products were on the way, and
were being produced in environmentally responsible ways.
The Innovation Challenge
To meet customer and consumer demands, better leverage their
New Brunswick footprint, continue their growth, and attract
investments for facility improvements, McCain’s New Brunswickbased operations needed to be competitive across the supply
chain, from the farm to the fork.
Enter the New Brunswick Industry Innovation Challenge; a
provincial competition designed to identify large-scale industry
research and development proposals which could mobilize
provincial assets and help fuel economic growth.
McCain Foods submitted a detailed proposal for a five-year
innovation program. The proposal focused on three major
initiatives aimed at creating breakthroughs across the supply
chain.
1)The Agriculture Research Initiative – Focused on
development of new, innovative agricultural technologies
with an end goal of improving yields and reducing raw
material costs.
2)The Manufacturing & Process Innovation Initiative –
Development of expertise, processes, and specialized
equipment to reduce waste and improve efficiencies at
several locations including their three New Brunswickbased plants.
3)The New Product Development Initiative - Create an
accelerated new product development process that would
allow McCain to launch many new products into the market
over the duration of the program to fill up existing and
newly created capacity at the New Brunswick plants.
McCain and Opportunities NB
The McCain proposal was a success, with the Province of
New Brunswick (through Opportunities NB) agreeing to an
investment of $5 million to support the innovation project.
McCain would provide an additional $5 million in matching
funds as part of the agreement.
The program has already seen the company work with a host
of small and medium-sized businesses and researchers from
New Brunswick to pursue their various process improvement,
product development, and soil remediation initiatives. Through
these initiatives McCain has worked closely with the Research
and Productivity Council, the University of New Brunswick,
Stantec, Resson Aerospace, Hyton Innovation, Motion Fab, Apex
Industries, Eigen Innovation, Envirem Organics, ADM Systems
Engineering, Solanum Genomics, and the province’s Department
of Agriculture, Aquaculture and Fisheries.
Results
McCain Foods has already seen enormous success with the
innovation project as they head into year two of the five-year
plan. They have already engaged with a number of New
Brunswick companies as part of both the Agriculture Research,
and Manufacturing & Process Innovation initiatives.
As part of the Agricultural Research Initiative, McCain has
worked with companies like Fredericton-based Resson
Aerospace. Resson utilizes advanced remote sensing and cloud
computing technologies to assist growers by providing data
on everything from distribution of moisture in soil to pest and
disease pressure.
‘‘We’re really thrilled to be working with McCain Foods.
They’re an excellent partner, and both a Canadian and
global leader in farming and agriculture. It’s a great
start for us, and I feel it really validates our technology
and how it can impact agriculture on a large scale.”
- Peter Goggin, CEO and Co-Founder, Resson Aerospace
On the Manufacturing & Process side of the equation, they
have engaged with both Apex Industries and Eigen Innovations
in the development of new processing equipment. They
are actively working with these New Brunswick-based
companies to improve manufacturing processes, which will
result in reductions in potato waste and energy use at McCain
operations worldwide.
As other McCain locations across the globe require new
equipment, they will be able to receive that necessary
machinery from Apex or Eigen. The initiative also helps solidify
Florenceville as an important hub for innovation within the
McCain organization.
From the New Product Development Initiative, McCain will have
launched three new potato products by the end of December
2015. This is after just year one of the program’s five-year
lifespan.
‘‘Apex Industries’ Product Development & Automation
Group has been working hand-in-hand with the teams
at McCain in the development of innovative ways
to manufacture new McCain products. It has been
a pleasure to be a part of the McCain culture where
achieving maximum efficiencies and making innovative
products is the norm. The opportunity to participate in
globally consumed products has been rewarding for
our company, our employees, and for all of us as proud
New Brunswickers.”
- Keith Parlee, CEO, Apex Industries
The company has also added seven new hires in order to support
the Innovation Challenge initiatives including four engineers, one
scientist, and two students.
The benefits of the McCain Innovation Program have immediately
extended beyond McCain’s walls. It is already assisting a host of
New Brunswick companies with their own growth efforts, while
proving that innovative technologies can and are being created
inside the province.
‘‘We are delighted to partner with Opportunities NB on this
very important initiative and are pleased that the research and
innovation is being done in New Brunswick and will have farreaching benefits,” said Allison McCain, the company’s Chairman.
‘‘We are partnering with a number of other New Brunswick
companies to achieve our objectives and our agricultural work will
help all farmers.”
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NEW BRUNSWICK SUCCESS STORY