Automation important to the future of food and beverage companies.Ottawa—Canada's food and beverage companies must enhance their manufacturing capacity or be left behind in a global competitiveness race, says Glenn Fraser, National Leader of the Food and Beverage Processing Practice of the accounting firm MNP.Keeping up has never been more critical, Fraser told the Commons agriculture committee because business “will look much different than it did pre-pandemic. More virtual activity is forecast as food and beverage manufacturers look to technological solutions to increase their efficiencies and effectiveness by adopting automation, mechanization, digitization, e-commerce and AI.”Those four factors will be a big part of the future, he said. “To enhance domestic and global competitiveness, we believe the federal government can help resolve ongoing issues and impediments to growth and profitability.”Ottawa needs to take “a leadership role in establishing new policies and programs to ensure the consistent availability of high-skilled labour.” The current 10 per cent labour shortage in the sector is expected to worse in the future making investments in automation, training and career awareness vital.Automation can help overcome the worker shortages while creating demand for skilled workers and drawing more youth to well-paying jobs in the sector, he said.The government should offer programs and incentives geared toward training and skills development for a modern workforce. “It is also critical to create specific policy geared toward developing awareness among youth of the variety of rewarding and skilled career and employment options within this industry.”The government can also help foster innovation in the sector, which is currently experiencing decreased investment caused by declining margins, difficulties in accessing capital for investment, and ongoing barriers to accessing tax credits toward scientific research and experimental development.Working in partnership with provincial governments and industry, the government should broaden existing funding programs while also developing industry-specific policy that can be used to promote innovation in food and beverage manufacturing. Innovation doesn't need to be leading edge or new technologies. Innovation can also be achieved by adopting proven strategies and technologies that may already exist inside or outside of Canada.Programs such as Agriculture Canada's Agri-Innovate program and ISED's strategic innovation fund have the potential to be expanded to include incentives for food and beverage manufacturers to invest. These funding programs need to be specifically tailored to the food and beverage manufacturing industry so there is a more streamlined and simplified method of accessing these funds.MNP, which specializes in the agrifood sector, also supports development of a grocery code of conduct that establishes a fair, transparent and efficient relationship between grocery retailers and food and beverage manufacturers. The five major grocery retailers control 80 per cent of the market, which has caused an unbalanced relationship in the business landscape between retailers and the food and beverage manufacturers where arbitrary transaction costs, fees and penalties are levied, at times retroactively.Alex Binkley is a freelance journalist and writes for domestic and international publications about agriculture, food and transportation issues. He's also the author of two science fiction novels with more in the works.