The Origins of the Challenge

At the outset of the pandemic, the Weston Family Foundation was inspired to make a significant long-term investment in Canadian food sovereignty.

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Supply chain disruptions – leading to acute fears of empty shelves – currency fluctuations, and the impact of climate change on global food production exposed the many vulnerabilities of Canada’s import-reliant food system.

How could a food system that imports more than 80% of its fresh produce become more resilient in the face of so much uncertainty? How could the Weston Family Foundation help?

We knew that any answer needed to:

  • have strong potential to spark system-wide change
  • benefit the greatest possible number of Canadians
  • be evidence based and expert led
  • produce tangible outcomes

Setting the target

Through extensive research, consultation, and collaboration, we focused on a specific problem that required innovative and ambitious solutions.

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The Foundation embarked on a rigorous research and consultation process. We spent more than a year learning about the opportunities and challenges within Canada’s food system from multiple perspectives, with significant input from both local and global experts.

In collaboration with our partner Challenge Works (formerly Nesta Challenges), we zeroed in on the opportunity to support the development of innovative, sustainable, and environmentally-friendly technologies that would extend the growing season of fresh produce. Success would mean we could both reduce the country’s dependency on imported fresh fruits and vegetables, and increase the resilience of Canada’s agricultural sector.

Stimulating Canadian-led solutions

The Homegrown Innovation Challenge uses a challenge-prize model that offers key advantages over traditional grant-making.

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A clear goal

All participating teams are working towards the same well-defined goal, captured in our Challenge statement: to create and deliver a market-ready system to reliably, sustainably, and competitively produce berries out-of-season and at scale in Canada.

Ongoing incentives and rewards

Combining a challenge-prize model with a stage-gated structure incentivizes continuous progress and rewards outcomes at each stage of the competition. The largest prizes are ultimately awarded to the teams that provide the best solutions to the problem.

Respect for the innovation process

The results at the end of each phase are the focus of the assessment criteria, rather than on how strictly a plan was followed. This allows solutions to evolve as teams continue to research, develop, test, and learn.

The Challenge Timeline

This dynamic timeline illustrates our stage-gate approach to deploying grants, shows the Challenge milestones accomplished to date, and provides information about the important stages still to come.

February 8, 2022

Launch the Challenge

The Weston Family Foundation announced the Homegrown Innovation Challenge, a competition to generate solutions that enable domestic food producers to grow berries out-of-season, sustainably, competitively, and at scale.

May 3, 2022

Applications to the Spark Phase close

Applications to the Spark Phase were due on May 3, 2022. Participation in the Spark Phase was not a prerequisite to apply to the Shepherd Phase of the Challenge.

May – June 2022

Assessment 1

The independent judging panel selected 15 grantee teams to receive Spark Awards.

July – December 2022

Spark Phase

Spark Awards of up to $50,000 were used by grantees to support development of their concept, build-out of their team and preparation of their full proposal (including technical plan) for the Shepherd Phase.

January 5, 2023

Applications to the Shepherd Phase close

The deadline for applications to the Shepherd Phase of the Challenge was on January 5, 2023. Only Shepherd Phase grantees will be considered for future phases of the Homegrown Innovation Challenge.

January – March 2023

Assessment 2

The independent judging panel selected 11 grantee teams for the Shepherd Phase.

April 2023 – December 2024

Shepherd Phase

The 11 grantee teams were awarded up to $1 million each over 18 months to develop and demonstrate a small-scale proof of concept of their system, generating evidence and learning to be assessed for progression to the Scaling Phase.

January 2025 – March 2025

Assessment 3

The independent judging panel selects four grantee teams for the Scaling Phase.

May 2025 – January 2028

Scaling Phase

Each of the four grantee teams selected from the Shepherd Phase is awarded up to $5 million across three years to build and demonstrate its system at farm scale, providing the judging panel with evidence that the team has achieved the objective set out in the Challenge statement.

2028

Assessment 4

Challenge winners are selected.

2028

Winners announced

One to two grantee teams selected from the Scaling Phase are announced as Challenge winners. One million dollars each is available to the technology breakthrough winner and the overall Challenge winner (both awards could be won by the same team).