Support for biofood exports - individual projects

• The applicant must be registered in the Quebec Business Registry and operate an establishment in Quebec.
• The business must engage primarily in food processing, agriculture, fisheries, commercial aquaculture, or subcontract all food processing within Quebec.
• For projects targeting Canadian markets outside Quebec, the company must have yearly sales of at least $1 million, hold a Canadian Food Inspection Agency (CFIA) license under the Safe Food for Canadians Regulations (SFCR), and have marketed products outside Quebec for at least two years or sell regularly in another Canadian province or territory.
• For projects targeting international markets (outside Canada), the company must have annual sales of at least $2 million, hold a CFIA license under the SFCR, have a Canada Revenue Agency import-export program account, and have marketed products outside Quebec for at least three years or sell internationally on a regular basis for at least one year.
• The applicant must not be a first-time exporter; businesses with no export experience are not eligible.

Who is eligible?

• Companies whose main economic activity is food processing
• Agricultural operations
• Companies in the fisheries sector
• Companies in the commercial aquaculture sector
• Companies that subcontract all their food processing in Quebec

Who is not eligible

• Groupings of companies (consortiums or associations of multiple businesses submitting a joint application).
• Companies whose main products are natural health products (bearing a Natural Product Number, NPN, or falling under natural health products regulations).
• Companies whose projects involve products with a Drug Identification Number (DIN).
• Companies commercializing products that are laboratory-grown food, cell-cultured food, ornamental horticulture products, animal feed, seeds, saplings, tobacco, or food products containing CBC or THC.
• Companies that have never exported outside Quebec.

Eligible expenses

• Fees related to GS1 product registry (subscription, registration, and associated services such as barcodes, GTIN, marketing content, planography content).
• Salary, social charges, and benefits (up to 26% of salary) for a full-time market development specialist dedicated to export sales outside Quebec, or the salary difference in case of internal promotion to this role (maximum 52 weeks).
• Professional external fees for eligible marketing activities (e.g., market research studies, consumer surveys, in-store tastings, adaptation of packaging and labels, content creation for advertising, translation, and traditional/online promotional activities).
• External business development fees, including fixed monthly fees for brokers or specialists in client prospecting and merchandising (excluding commissions), trademark registration, updating commercialization or international market plans, establishing an office or subsidiary outside Quebec (excluding the U.S.), first-year rental of office space abroad (excluding the U.S.), association memberships, B2B platform subscriptions, and business sample shipments.
• Costs for participation in professional trade shows (registration, booth rental, equipment, exhibit set-up, transport and handling of materials, shipment of product samples to events).
• Travel and accommodation costs for employees traveling outside Quebec for market development missions or trade show participation, reimbursed as a flat-rate amount by destination, up to 24 trips per project and 2 employees per trip.
• Travel and accommodation costs for hosting potential buyers from outside Quebec, reimbursed as a flat-rate amount by country of origin.

Eligible geographic areas

• Quebec

• Demonstrated strategy for diversifying export markets outside Quebec (0–3 points).
• Use of main ingredients available in Quebec when sufficient (0–3 points).
• Coherence of the project based on previous efforts to develop and diversify markets outside Quebec (0–3 points).
• Realistic anticipated benefits in terms of additional sales on targeted markets (0–3 points).
• Clearly identified, credible, and relevant success factors (0–3 points).

• The program requires submission of a detailed, recent (less than two years old) export marketing plan as part of the application.
• Applications and required attachments must be submitted in French, and all requested supporting documents must be transmitted in a single package.
• A final project report is mandatory at the end of the project and is required to qualify for future funding rounds.
• Document naming conventions and organization are specified and must be respected to ensure proper processing of the application.