If you don’t have what it takes to turn oatmeal into smoothies, find someone who does.
Godwin Pon of Saskatchewan Agriculture’s value-added unit detailed the resources available to fledgling businesses during the Saskatchewan Young Ag Entrepreneurs conference in Saskatoon Jan. 5.
He suggested seeking help from his unit, which can advise on resources and opportunities and recommend a path to take to move a product from the farm to the store.
That includes tweaking products and developing technologies to produce them with help from organizations such as the Saskatchewan Food Industry Development Centre and POS Bio-Sciences.
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The Saskatchewan Trade and Export Partnership, National Research Council and Ag-West Bio are other resources that can move the product along the chain.
Pon said start-up companies face many challenges.
“It’s not just one or two pitfalls but a host of them,” he said.
They include the capital needed to advance an idea to commercialization and management capabilities required to run a business.
“The management experience you need to run the proverbial lemonade stand is very different than having 10 employees and scaling up to 30, 50 or 100.”
Pon said Saskatchewan is well positioned to take advantage of value-added opportunities because of its land base, diverse crops and population growth. He also said consumers want to know where their food comes from and are concerned about global food security.
The Saskatchewan company Oatdeal will take its oat-based smoothies to CBC’s Dragon Den this season.
Other entrepreneurs are making beer from lentils, using protein extracted from peas in baby formula and pet food and selling cold-pressed flax and canola.
