Toronto Region Well Positioned to Take Lead as North America’s Food Cluster

Around the world, and in particular in Europe regions have been successful in establishing and marketing industry clusters as a way to promote and grow their regions.

Although the concept of industry cluster is nothing new to North American economic development professionals, European policymakers seems to have a leg-up when it comes to create competitive advantages for their regional clusters by organizing the cluster stakeholders in member organizations, driven by a growth and marketing strategy executed by a central cluster management overseen by a Board of Directors.

Looking to create growth and return on investment, the cluster management is actively pursuing a growth strategy built on objectives similar to that of a business. This includes a market driven approach to determine focus and investment activities. The industry and the market opportunity in large set the agenda for the cluster.

The cluster is actively pursuing a marketing and branding strategy in order to assist their stakeholders as well as to attract inward investments. Within several industries a number of European clusters are actively competing to position themselves as the ‘go-to-cluster’ for innovation and entrepreneurship.

Within the European food industry, there are over a dozen clusters utilizing this strategy many just a cluster name or yet to be realized – but a handful are very successful and well recognized.

Clusters like Food Valley (Netherlands), Oresund Food (Sweden & Denmark) and Vitagora in France all enjoy international recognition and continue to attract foreign direct investments thanks to their active marketing efforts.

Should a non-European food company or R&D organization look to establish itself on the continent – there would be several well known clusters that would be the natural first point of consideration.

In North America the situation is different. Although there are many metropolitan areas that have a bolstering food industry, but no region has yet capitalized on the opportunity to organize a cluster and position themselves as the go-to region for food technology and innovation.In North America several regions has gained status as the go-to area for particular industries, in most cases mostly due the sheer volume and presence of the particular industry stakeholders. Examples can be Silicon Valley for IT, Houston for oil and gas. Los Angeles for entertainment, and more recent emerging areas as for instance New York and California for cleantech.

In the food industry, the situation is a bit different. Based on the initial definition of a cluster, pretty much every city in North America has a food cluster. There are industry, government and academia that interact, collaborate and compete in some degree. These can all be called food clusters – but is a result of coincidence rather than a cluster with a purpose.

There is an opportunity for the Greater Toronto Region to be the first mover within the food industry and position the region as the leading and go-to cluster for food innovation and food development.

Toronto based, Accelligent Management Group has recognized this opportunity, and in the fall of 2009, representatives from the company started meeting with key stakeholders in the greater Toronto region. After several months of lobbying towards local, regional and federal stakeholders – in large due to the interest in seeing the local economy benefit from this opportunity, there is now a project underway to further explore this opportunity.

There should not be a major lift to organize the already significant food industry in the Greater Toronto Area into a cluster with purpose. By doing so, the industry and its stakeholders will signalize to the world that the region has a leading industry and should be on top of the list for companies and organizations looking for a North American point of entry.

Building on the proven models and structure from Europe, the regional industry stakeholders need to address critical issues like organizational models, governance structure long and short-term goals.

The window of opportunity is closing, as there is an increasing interest in the concept of using cluster development as a tool to drive economic growth. Also, throughout North America several regions well positioned to pull the trigger on a Food Industry Cluster Initiative, and some have already have indicated the interest in building a food cluster.In the Greater Toronto Region, the non-profit organization TRRA (Toronto Region Research Alliance) has taken on the role as the “Clusterpreneur” to further explore and define the opportunity.

Canadian Federal Government Funds Dairy Research Cluster

Funding of $8.7 million is being provided by the federal government to help the dairy industry create a cluster of scientific and technical expertise to study the health benefits of dairy products and ways to improve animal productivity through health and breeding.

The funding includes up to $7.2 million under the Agri-Science Clusters initiative, with a $1.5 million contribution from the Canadian Dairy Commission and $121,000 from the Natural Sciences and Engineering Research Council of Canada. The funding will support the Dairy Farmers of Canada’s contribution of $3 million for the cluster.

The Government of Canada is also providing up to $995,000 in the Dairy Farmers of Canada’s Canadian Quality Milk (CQM) food safety system, which helps producers proactively strengthen on-farm food systems. This funding will help the DFC develop a national database (National Electronic Administration System – NEAS) to track on-farm audits and manage the validation and registration processes for the system.

Aéro Montréal Cluster receives $150 million funding

The provincial government of Quebec, represented by the Minister of Finance, Raymond Bachand, has announced a commitment to fund the Quebec aerospace industry cluster with $150 million over four years to help the industry cluster take a leading position in developing technologies related to “green”aircrafts.

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Top 10 Cleantech Cluster Organizations for 2010

There is no doubt that cleantech and renewable energy related sectors will continue to accelerate into 2010 and beyond. Driven by significant public policy, economic stimuli and incentive initiatives, several regions are developing fast growing cleantech clusters. Although using a fairly loose definition of clusters, Sustainable World Capital (SWC) a cleantech advisory firm recently developed a top-ten list of global cleantech clusters to watch. The top 5 clusters are according to SWC:

1. Austria Eco World Styria (Austria)
2. The New England Clean Energy Council (USA)
3. Finnish Cleantech Cluster (Finland)
4. MaRS Cleantech (Canada)
5. Copenhagen Cleantech Cluster (Denmark)

The entire list, and more details published at Cleantech Grop LLC’s Web site

GPI: Taking the Bull by the Horn

Guelph Partnership for Innovation (GPI) was formed in May 2002 under the objective of bringing together the life science and agri-food companies in Guelph in order to facilitate information sharing and cluster development. Key stakeholders combined with private-sector businesses and community organizations currently make up the Board of Directors of GPI. GPI is primarily governed by business (70% of voting directors are from business).

At its inception in 2002 GPI filled a prominent void in the Guelph life science and agri-food cluster community. Through its alliances with the Guelph Chamber of Commerce and the City of Guelph, GPI events quickly gained a reputation as the place to meet and network.

GPI two main focus areas are:  Cluster Development and Entrepreneur Development. Secondary focus areas include marketing and promotion of the cluster, technology assessment, mentor network and bioproducts support.

Since its inception, GPI has managed to take the position as one of the leading Agribio clusters in the world.  The cluster offers its stakeholders a number of educational and networking events, and the cluster management is busy marketing GPI and its resources.

GPI is a good example of how focus and persistance can help grow a niche cluster. More information: GPI

International GIS Cluster Conference

The Enterprise for Innovative Geospatial Solutions (EIGS) housed at The University of Mississippi in the US is hosting an international conference to discuss emerging efforts to foster geospatial research and industry clusters. The event is a follow-on from the 1st International GIS Cluster Conference that was held in Sweden in 2008.

One of the motivations for brining the event to Ole Miss was according to Dr. Greg Easson, EIGS Executive Director the opportunity to further learn more about cluster development and programs from developed clusters clusters around the globe.

Among the clusters at the event will be:

• GIS-Cluster Salzburg (Austria)
• Future Position X (Sweden’s national GIS Cluster)
• Wuhan Geospatial Information Industry Base (China)
• Geospatial Quebec (Canada)

We are excited to see that the idea of international collaboration and best practice sharing is on the agenda – and also to such a specific industry niche as GIS.

On a side note, GIS is also a valuable tool for cluster mapping and development – something we previously have successfully utilized.

Gaming and electronic media cluster growing in Ontario, Canada

The province of Toronto expects to create 800 jobs over the next 10 years by providing the French game developer Ubisoft with contribution of CAD$ 263 million.

The total investment by Ubisoft (including the provincial contribution) will be CAD$ 800 million.

The new Ubisoft studios will be a part of what is called the Ontario Technology Corridor, and spans five urban regions.

The Ontario Technology Corridor has been quite successful, and over the past decade alone it has the creative cluster has created more than 80,000 new jobs.

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F2C Innovation: French agri-food “super cluster”

A French partnership among three agri-food clusters is an interesting model for how to further utilize the synergies and dynamics created within a cluster. First announced  during IFT earlier this year, Vitagora,  Valorial and AgriMip have joined forces under the brand F2C: Field to Consumer.

By doing so, the three clusters will allow its collective members of 370 companies, 130 public and private R&D organizations and 35 academic institutes collaborate, share information and build intra-cluster partnerships.

This is yet another example of how clusters realize the opportunity of creating brands to further advance its position and recognition globally. Branding of clusters is a practice that seems to have gotten most traction in Europe (we are aware of 11 branded food related clusters in Europe alone – but I am sure there are more). There are certain regions in North America as well that have either established a brand (e.g. Montréal InVivo), or in the process of doing so. Our organization is currently working with two North America metropolitan regions, in two different industry sectors that are in the process of developing a “branded” Cluster Initiative similar to those mentioned above.

North Bay, Ontario (Canada) charting out a Biomass Cluster

Last month renewable industry stakeholders from all over the descended upon the city of North Bay, Ontario to take part in the two day conference: Harness Biomass – from the forest to the market place. The event that hosted over 400 delegates was yet another milestone achieved by the The Biomass Innovation Centre ( created by the Nipissing University in partnership with the local industry ) in the pursuit of establish a leading Biomass cluster in the North Bay region.

Building on the rich forest industry in the Northern part of Ontario (referred to as the Biomass Belt by the cluster’s stakeholders), the objective is to create a world-leading centre of R&D, commercialization and entrepreneurship in the are of production of biomass fuel.

Cluster stake holders have previously visited and hosted other Biomass centers around the world, including Austria, Finland and Sweden.

Biomass as a fuel alternative is certainly nothing new, and several jurisdictions has announced and launched Biomass cluster initiatives, but the North Bay emerging cluster may be enjoying some tailwind ahead thanks to the Ontario Power Generation’s (OPG) Biomass Energy Program in particular.

We look forward to see how the cluster stakeholder will further stake out their cluster development strategy moving forward.

Saskatoon ranked as the best city for entrepreneurs in Canada

The Canadian Federation of Independent Business in its second annual survey for the Financial Post, ranked Saskatoon the No. 1 small business friendly community, based on a series of criteria, including the number of business startups, population, self-employment intensity and the requisite costs and “sensitivity” by local government toward facilitating small business opportunities.

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