The governments of Canada and Ontario announced C$2 million on October 5 for small businesses in the province’s agri-food sector. The funding will be delivered through the second intake of Ontario’s Food Safety and Growth Initiative, which is intended to help eligible businesses expand and improve food safety. The announcement focuses on tools and technology for operations that produce, process or service specified food products, with an emphasis on stronger safety systems and more efficient processes.

A business must have fewer than 100 employees at the project location to fit the stated size limit. The release gives bagged salads, cheese and ice cream as examples of products covered by the initiative. Individual projects may receive up to $75,000. Eligible uses include food-safety equipment and technology, traceability systems and process improvements. The governments have not yet named projects that will receive the new funding, and the maximum grant should not be read as a standard award for every applicant.

Applications are scheduled to open on October 19, 2026, and remain open until March 1, 2027, or until available funding has been committed. The release cautions that eligibility requirements may differ from those used for the first intake. Businesses will need to consult the program’s intake-two details to establish whether their activity, project costs and proposed improvements qualify. The announcement provides the application window and broad eligible investment areas, rather than a final list of recipients or a breakdown of the $2 million among regions or product categories.

The initiative builds on an earlier intake launched in 2024. According to the governments, that round supported 90 projects and helped create more than 70 full-time and part-time jobs. Those figures describe the previous intake and are not a forecast for the new round. Ontario’s food and beverage processing sector includes more than 4,000 companies, over 90% of which are classified as small businesses; the province identifies it as its largest manufacturing employer by employment.

The new funding is framed as support for both food safety and business capacity. Traceability tools can help firms track products through their operations, while equipment and process upgrades may improve how they handle or process food. The release does not claim that a particular technology will be adopted by all recipients or quantify future reductions in incidents, costs or emissions. The program’s practical effect will depend on which businesses apply, which proposals meet the rules and how funded improvements are put into use.