Dairy Processing Investment Fund: Step 1. What this program offers

Step 1. What this program offers

Intake period: Closed

The application intake period for the Dairy Processing Investment Fund is now closed.

The Dairy Processing Investment Fund was established to provide funding to dairy processors for investments that will improve productivity and competitiveness, and help them prepare to market changes resulting from the Canada-European Union Comprehensive Economic and Trade Agreement (CETA). The program will provide non-repayable contributions to support projects through:

  • Capital Investment in equipment and infrastructure; and/or
    • Improving manufacturing technologies and processes, or the introduction of new or improved products (including the acquisition and installation of equipment);
    • Construction, expansion and/or modernization of dairy processing establishments in Canada; and,
    • Engagement of external expertise/consultants related to the implementation, certification or validation of plant improvements.
  • Access to Expertise to engage private sector technical, managerial, and business expertise

The Fund will also allow an applicant to request access to Agriculture and Agri-Food Canada scientist(s), at an Agriculture and Agri-Food Canada Research and Development Centre, in order to conduct collaborative research on a project relating to improving an existing product, practice, process, and/or technology.

Please note as it is a priority to improve processor productivity and competitiveness the program will target funding toward those investments that best achieve these goals. As such, for capital projects the program expects to focus on helping processors invest in new processing equipment that will help reduce costs, improve product quality and expand capacity (used or refurbished equipment is ineligible).

Examples of these types of investments include following:

  • Automation of production line
  • Conveyor
  • ERP (Enterprise Resource Planning)
  • Ventilation (humidity control)
  • Fridge
  • Silos
  • Packaging equipment (including encoder, packing, labelling, printing, coding, etc.)

The above equipment list is not exhaustive and is intended only to provide context.

Expenditures related to building expansion or new construction are eligible under the program, however support for these investments will be limited to circumstances where the applicant presents a strong case outlining the need to support these types of costs.

The overall program budget is $100 million and the program will end on March 31, 2021.

How much can you receive

The maximum funding available per Capital Investment project is $10 million and $250,000 per Access to Expertise project.

The maximum amount an applicant can receive is $10 million in total per year.

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