Northern Food Security Challenge in Canada

The Northern Food Security Challenge is an agri-food innovation challenge where eligible Northern Ontario businesses are invited to submit an application focused on their innovative solutions, processes or methods used to improve food security in Northern communities. The 6 highest scoring applications will be selected to participate in a virtual pitch competition hosted in partnership with the Ingenuity, Lakehead University’s business incubator space.

A cash prize of $10,000 will be awarded to the winner and a $5,000 cash prize will be provided to the runner up.  Applications to the challenge will be judged on the problem or opportunity they are addressing, their solution’s ability to address the problem/opportunity, team experience and readiness to grow the business and the overall impact to agri-food security in the North.

Eligible applicants are headquartered in Northern Ontario, are a sole proprietorship or corporation, for-profit Canadian company with a minimum Technology Readiness Level of 4+ who operate in the agriculture or food & beverage sectors. This competition is designed for early-stage companies who are pre-revenue or have trailing 12 month revenues of less than $250,000 and have 5 or fewer FTE employees.