Canada’s food processing sector desperately needs more workers, especially skilled workers, who have the technical abilities and knowledge to work at plant protein manufacturers and other plants.
To help address the worker shortage, Assiniboine Community College in Brandon is developing two diploma programs to train students for jobs in food and beverage processing.
ACC is creating the three-year food science and chemical engineering technology diploma programs in collaboration with Roquette, a food ingredient company with headquarters in France.
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“These are the first programs of their kind in Manitoba, with the food science diploma being the first in the Prairies,” ACC said in a May 4 news release.
“The goal of these new programs is to ensure an adequate workforce for the evolving plant-protein processing and food and beverage manufacturing sectors.”
Roquette is a leader within the emerging plant protein sector in Canada. Last year, the firm officially opened its $400 million pea protein plant in Portage, which has about 110 full-time employees.
The ACC program will help train employees for Roquette and others in the plant-protein space.
“As a growing sector … and an industry that will require an additional 17,000 new employees by 2035, it is critical that we develop programs to help build a skilled workforce to meet the needs of our industry partners,” said Bill Greuel, chief executive officer of Protein Industries Canada.
The new diploma programs should help other food manufacturers, which employ about 300,000 Canadians.
Food and Beverage Canada, an industry association, says the sector has been dealing with a severe shortfall of employees. There are approximately 8,000 food and beverage plants in Canada and most of the firms cannot find enough workers.
“It is estimated that food and beverage manufacturers are short, on average, 10 percent of their workforce, a total of 30,000 workers every day,” Food and Beverage Canada says on its website.
“By 2025, workforce shortages are expected to more than double to 65,000 workers.”
Many firms rely on temporary foreign workers to fill the labour gap, but the industry would like to attract more Canadians. To create the curriculum for the diploma programs, ACC will work with Roquette and other organizations in Canada’s plant-based food and ingredients sector. That way, ACC can tailor the program to meet industry needs.
“There’s never been a more exciting time for people to start a career in Canada’s booming plant-based protein sector,” said Dominique Baumann, managing director for Roquette in Canada.
“Graduates of these programs will be well positioned for employment with any number of food processors and will play an important role in helping to increase Canada’s at-home food production capacity.”
