Farm Credit Canada (FCC) hosted its second Food and Beverage Summit in Winnipeg last week.
The summit, according to Sue Exner who is a regional marketing director with FCC, is intended to be an event where everyone from the food and beverage industries can gather together to network, showcase their product, and share ideas to make one another better. The first summit was held in Saskatoon last year. Prior to that, she said there wasn’t an event dedicated to the sector in Saskatchewan or Manitoba.
“It kind of struck me in a way that it’s very expensive to travel to some of these events in these larger cities and centres and some of these micro-to-small businesses don’t have the access capital for them to actually travel and gain the insights that they would at these other major shows,” said Exner. “Because there was a gap in the industry, (I) started talking to different industry associations and individuals within both Saskatchewan and Manitoba and realize that there is a gap and how can we close this gap? And that’s where FCC came in to play in creating the FCC Food and Beverage Summit.”
This year’s summit was held at the Manitoba Museum in downtown Winnipeg, where 287 people registered with 35 booths set up, an increase from the 225 people registered and 25 booths from the inaugural Summit in Saskatoon in 2023. The majority of attendees were from Manitoba and some from Ontario and Saskatchewan.
“So from an interest of demand for tickets as well as exhibitor booths, it truly validates that there is a gap and that there is a demand for this type of offering.” Exner said.
There were more than 10 guest speakers at the event from business owners within the food and beverage sector to members of FCC, including Senior Vice-President and Chief Economist at FCC J.P Gervais, Eric Waterman from IC Canada, Peter Chapman with SKUFood, and Christopher Parker with Canadian grocery and food service provider Tree of Life. Topics ranged from trends in the economy, services available for businesses to utilize at IC Canada, and marketing strategies to improve, among other things, social media presence and customer experience.
She says they’re currently reviewing what worked at the summit and what can be improved on, adding there’s interest to bring the event to Alberta. A goal Exner has is to partner with businesses, ag groups, and annual farm shows such as Manitoba Ag Days to create more opportunities for businesses to showcase their products and to “bridge the gap between the agriculture world and the food and beverage world”.
“I know talking to one of the exhibitors at the event, they just said that the fact that we can promote prairie products within the Prairies is absolutely amazing,” she said. “That right there it just leaves you with a really good feeling.”