The Manitoba government, along with the Manitoba Protein Consortium, hosted an interactive virtual forum on Sustainable Protein Innovation this week.
“Manitoba’s vision is to be North America’s protein supplier of choice, leading our country in sustainable protein industry growth that will benefit the profitability and competitiveness of producers, processors and the provincial economy,” said Manitoba Agriculture & Resource Development Minister Blaine Pedersen. “We are working collaboratively with our industry, academic and government stakeholders to position Manitoba as a leader in sustainable protein and develop a network of collaborators that can mobilize around sustainable protein initiatives.”
The Sustainable Protein Innovation Forum was attended by approximately 85 organizations, where a new Sustainable Protein Action Framework was released.
Manitoba began its sustainable protein work in 2019 with a goal to become a global leader. The province created a Protein Consortium to provide leadership on projects of strategic importance and encourage stakeholders to continue their actions to implement the Manitoba Protein Advantage strategy.
With this in place, Manitoba launched a multi-stakeholder ‘challenge dialogue’ on the future of sustainable protein, and gained feedback and insights from more than 85 organizations across the protein industry. Over the past eight months, the province has been working together with stakeholders across the food and agriculture industry to identify specific actions, gaps to fill and a network of collaborators on research to support the province’s vision to differentiate its protein as first-in-class sustainability.
“The Challenge Dialogue discipline has been a transformational process for developing shared understanding, actions and next steps in our goal to achieve the full potential of the Manitoba Protein Advantage Strategy. Thank you to everyone who has participated,” said Dickson Gould, chair of the Manitoba Protein Consortium.
Seventeen industry leaders from Canada, as well as the Netherlands and Bulgaria, created the Sustainable Protein Action Framework. Together, they formed a team to prioritize strategic activities and identify opportunities for scalable impact. This framework outlines the full suite of actions that are required to achieve the common goal of advancing sustainable protein.
“I’m pleased to have had the opportunity to collaborate with a number of other industry representatives on a design team to create the Sustainable Protein Action Framework released yesterday,” said David Wiens, Chair of Dairy Farmers of Manitoba. “The framework covers the entire sustainable protein landscape and will serve as a reference to guide future actions and position Manitoba as a leader in sustainability.”
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