Success Story: Pork Processor Receives $100K in GF2 Ontario Business Grants

bigstock-building-a-small-brick-wall-on-20610638An Ontario pork processor has undertaken a labour-focused process improvement initiative in their cut and pack area, with the aim of reducing overtime and identifying headcount requirements throughout this area for each shift.

Ontario Business Grants Support the Assessment:

This firm was recommended to access funding through Growing Forward 2’s Capacity Building Stream in order to cover the data capture and time analysis costs at 50% for a total of ~$100,000 in grant funding.

GF2 Funding for the Project Implementation Plan:

Overall, this business received just over $40K grant contribution to fund their project implementation related costs through GF2 Ontario’s Project Implementation stream, including third party consulting and capital costs.

Ontario government funding for Food Processing: Results

The successful project resulted in a time study and the identification of non-value-added tasks and productivity barriers providing strong documentation for the ownership to pursue the implementation of these recommendations. At the same time, Growing Forward 2’s goal of encouraging strong planning in Ontario’s food and agriculture operations was also achieved.

Ontario Small Business Grants for Food Processing: The Bottom Line

The processor was able to receive funding for a wide variety of costs related to their process analysis, including consulting costs, hardware and software, seeking support for 35% of the costs. Using internal documentation and interviews with key staff, as well as the software vendor, key performance indicators for the project were developed. Some key outcomes included:

  • Improved tare giveaway;
  • Reduced cut waste; and
  • The implementation of a new operations management system with labour tracking capabilities and live views for supervisory staff.

The project is expected to result in well over $1M in annualized savings from redirected labour costs and increased yield. The application was successful and the total costs of the project were supported by Ontario Ministry of Agriculture and Food (OMAF) at approximately 43% across the two streams of the Growing Forward 2 Program.

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