Making hemp a Canadian household ingredient

Thanks to focused investment, traditionally smaller crops in Canada are seeing a rise in popularity in the plant-based food and ingredient space. Innovative R&D work means that these crops—such as hemp—are being used in innovative ways, and consumers are taking notice.

“Our primary ingredients deliver tremendous flexibility to a consumer who buys those products. So you can incorporate that into your breakfast cereal, you can add them into your smoothie mixes, sprinkle hemp hearts onto your salad or incorporate into baking. So there's a wide range of flexibility that you can use with these ingredients,” said Clarence Shwaluk, Senior Director of Operations for Fresh Hemp Foods, the parent brand of Manitoba Harvest.

Since 1998, Manitoba Harvest has been working to grow both the acreage and uses of Canada’s hemp crop. Now leading Canada’s hemp food space, Manitoba Harvest introduced Canadian consumers to hemp as a source of omega-3 oils and protein that was easy to digest and incorporate into other foods.

And the range of food applications from the Manitoba Harvest brand and their hemp ingredients lineup is growing. When the company first started, it launched its hemp product as a topper, encouraging consumers to add it to their breakfast cereals or salads, or mix it into baking products. Today, Manitoba Harvest’s Innovations Team has developed high-protein lines of granola and instant oatmeal, and is working to launch snack products—all in addition to the work they do to help other companies incorporate hemp protein into their own food products.

“Our innovations team continues to work using our primary ingredients to expand our own branded product line, but then we also help our CPG customers formulate hemp into their own products, so we’re exposing hemp to a wider range of consumers through their products, as well,” Shwaluk said.

This collaborative, seed-to-shelf approach is not only providing Canadian families with a new high-protein food option, it’s also helping increase sustainability and market benefits for Canadian farmers. Shwaluk explained that with hemp being included as an additional crop in farmers’ rotations, their land is better able to resist weeds, diseases and other pests, while the crop itself helps increase organic soil matter. The seed-to-shelf focus of the company also helps bring consumers closer to farmers, improving traceability and consumer trust in the product.

“There's a number of different levels where we provide benefit, and it's not only in Canada, but we reach markets in the United States, and we're expanding internationally,” Shwaluk said. “So again, we take products produced on our Canadian farms and give them opportunity to go around the world and reach those markets.”

This dedication to reaching new markets—in Canada and globally—will continue as Manitoba Harvest works to expand its offerings. Shwaluk explained that the company is working with Verve Seeds under a Protein Industries Canada project to advance hemp crop genetics, aiming to improve yield and nutritional components, both of which will lead to improvements in efficiencies at all levels of the value chain from farm to consumer.