Big Mountain Foods provides Canadians with locally sourced plant-based foods that are good for you, and the planet

Based out of Vancouver, Big Mountain Foods is a manufacturer of responsibly sourced, sustainably made plant-based products. Driven by the concern for our planet and all those who inhabit it, they aim to minimize our environmental impact from the ground to the shelf by partnering with local farmers, finding creative ways to upcycle avoidable food waste, and using sustainable processing standards to create healthy plant-based products. Built by four generations of entrepreneurial women, Big Mountain Foods prides itself on being entirely female-owned and operating with a workforce of over 90 per cent female immigrants.

The Challenge: Acquiring funding to support growth plans and respond to new challenges

Looking to take their business to the next step, Big Mountain Foods came to the Accelerated Growth Service with a clear goal in mind: scale-up production capacity, expand R&D, and position themselves to compete in the global plant-based market. With the help of their Innovation Advisor they quickly connected with government partners which enabled the business to fast track their growth. Since connecting with AGS in 2019, they have scaled-up and commercialized a new line of soy free chickpea-based tofu, invested in the development of environmentally friendly manufacturing processes and expanded into a 70,000 square foot facility. In addition to supporting their initial growth goals, their Innovation Advisor connected them with valuable COVID-19 relief resources allowing them to retain all their staff during the height of the pandemic and respond to new safety requirements. Today they have increased their staff from 5 employees to 32.

How we’re helping them grow their business

1. New equipment financing
2. Referrals to additional funding
3. Help to acquire federal funding for expansion programs
4. Referrals to the right strategic partners

• National Research Council’s Industrial Research Assistance Program (NRC-IRAP)
• Western Economic Diversification Canada (WD)
• Agriculture and Agri-Food Canada
• AgriInnovate

We're also helping them get

• Funding provided by NRC-IRAP to support the development of a new manufacturing process for soy free tofu
• Provincial funding to scale up, develop, and commercialize new technologies and products through the BC Accelerating Manufacturing Scale Up Grant
• Partnership with the Protein Industries Global Innovation Cluster to contribute to innovation and research in the planet-based industry

Read the full article here.