Mars Discovery District launches new foodtech mission

Mars Discovery District launches a national food and agtech mission. Powered by Farm Credit Canada (FCC), this mission aims to help strengthen Canada’s food systems by increasing the flow of investment, building resilience into the agri-food sector, and reducing operational emissions.

“Canada has the chance to lead the world in building the food systems of tomorrow,” says Grace Lee Reynolds, CEO of Mars. “This mission aims to kick-start that process. We are backing bold ideas and scaling homegrown innovation so we can feed people sustainably, cut emissions and set the global standard for resilient supply chains.”

As part of the mission, Mars is launching a venture accelerator designed to support up to 10 Canadian startups that are developing innovations across the supply chain ecosystem, which reduce emissions, cut waste, improve efficiency and build resilience in our food systems. Registration for the venture accelerator ends Oct. 17, 2025. Click here to apply to the venture accelerator.

In parallel, an 18-month corporate adopter cohort will bring together six innovation-minded industry leaders from across the agri-food value chain. Working directly with ventures, adopters will aim to co-develop pilot projects designed to accelerate commercial-scale adoption and create real-world impact.

Both the venture accelerator and the corporate adopter cohort will be guided by a national coalition of experts and stakeholders from industry, finance and the innovation community, who will identify market barriers and enable large-scale adoption of agri-food innovation. The founding coalition members include representatives from Wittington Ventures, S2G Investments, TELUS Agriculture & Consumer Goods, The Arrell Family Foundation and NYA Ventures.