Partner blog feature: Creating an experience around food

Feb 13, 2024

Laura Virginillo’s company, Modern General Food Group, traces its origins to a 1,400 square foot bakery in Vancouver, where she started out offering fresh baking, handcrafted coffee and drinks and unique pantry staples. Like so many others, the pandemic caused her to change course and Virginillo began producing her own products.

Following a move to Ontario in 2021, she’s also been building a wholesale business where she develops, manufactures and sells unique food products under her own brand name. Innovation is key for her when she’s developing recipes or packaged products and looking for better ways to do things.

Learn more about Laura’s journey in an article by the Small Scale Food Processors Association, a Bioenterprise Canada industry partner.

Click here to see more...

Video: Why Invest in Canada’s Seed Future? | On The Brink: Episode 3

Darcy Unger just invested millions to build a brand-new seed plant on his farm in Stonewall, Manitoba so when it’s time for his sons to take over, they have the tools they need to succeed.

Right now, 95% of the genetics they’ll be growing come from Canadian plant breeders.

That number matters.

When fusarium hit Western Canada in the late 90s, it was Canadian breeders who responded, because they understood Canadian conditions. That ability to react quickly to what’s happening on Canadian farms is exactly what’s at risk when breeding programs lose funding.

For farmers like Darcy, who have made generational investments based on the assumption that better genetics will keep coming, the stakes are direct and personal.

We’re on the brink of decisions that will shape our agricultural future for not only our generation, but also the ones to come.

What direction will we choose?

On The Brink is a year-long video series traveling across Canada to meet the researchers, breeders, farmers, seed companies, and policymakers shaping the future of Canadian plant breeding. Each week, a new story. Each story, a piece of the bigger picture.

Episode 3 is above. Follow Seed World Canada to catch every episode, and tell us: Do you think the next generation will have the tools they need to success when they takeover? How is the future going to look?