To meet our climate goals, we need to rethink our food systems
There is an urgent need to transform the way we produce, process and distribute food. The global food and agriculture sectors account for close to one third of all greenhouse gas emissions and 86 percent of biodiversity loss. Building operational resilience, increasing food security and reducing waste are all essential to making Canada’s food system more competitive and climate-resilient. Through this mission, MaRS is helping to accelerate the adoption of Canadian innovations that extend beyond the farm gate, including solutions that tackle waste reduction, optimize logistics, increase traceability, and harness the power of robotics and AI forecasting.
Mission objectives
This mission aims to help strengthen Canada’s food systems in three key ways:
- Increase the flow of investment to support the growth and scaling of Canadian food and AgTech solutions.
- Build resilience into the food and agriculture sector to support climate adaptation efforts and boost Canada’s global competitiveness.
- Reduce the operational emissions of Canada’s food and agriculture sector through the adoption of new innovations.
Food and AgTech Mission, powered by Farm Credit Canada
Supports adoption-ready, made-in-Canada technologies to help make our food and agriculture sectors more resilient.
The Mission consists of three components:
- Venture accelerator
- Corporate adopter cohort
- Coalition
Venture accelerator
As part of the Mission from MaRS: Food and AgTech, MaRS is launching a venture accelerator designed to fast-track the commercialization and adoption of Canadian innovations tackling the sector’s most urgent supply chain challenges. The first venture accelerator will launch December 2025 with a focus on supply chains. MaRS is recruiting six to 10 ventures that are developing innovations across the supply chain ecosystem that reduce emissions, cut waste, improve efficiency and build resilience across the food system. Participating ventures should be working on solutions with a technology readiness level (TRL) of six to nine. Learn how to apply here.
Corporate adopter cohort
Mission from MaRS: Food and AgTech is also launching an 18-month corporate adopter cohort program, which provides six companies from across Canada with tailored support and resources to improve the efficiency, effectiveness and sustainability of their operations. The program will support corporations in assessing, developing and executing a plan for innovation adoption. The first corporate cohort will launch in December of 2025 with the theme of digital agriculture, focusing on helping deployment-ready corporations across the food and agricultural value chain adopt scalable innovations beyond the farm gate. The mission will look to tackle such issues as waste, cold chain and traceability management, labour cost reduction and climate risk exposure.
The coalition
This mission brings a diverse group of experts and stakeholders from industry, finance and the innovation community together to identify, prioritize and act on systemic challenges that are critical to driving the resilience and prosperity of Canada’s agri-food system. This coalition will serve as an advisory body for all Food and AgTech Mission activities.
Meet our coalition members
Aaron Cheng
Director of Ventures and Strategic Investments
TELUS Agriculture and Consumer Goods
Aaron Cheng
Director of Ventures and Strategic Investments
TELUS Agriculture and Consumer Goods
Aaron Cheng is a technology and business leader with over 25 years of experience at TELUS, currently serving as Director of Ventures and Strategic Investments in the Agriculture and Consumer Goods business. He brings a diverse background to strategic planning, with experience across Engineering, Operations, Product Development, Customer Experiences, Mergers and Acquisitions, and Strategic Programs.
Audre Kapacinskas
Principal
S2G Investments
Audre Kapacinskas
Principal
S2G Investments
Audre Kapacinskas is a Principal at S2G Investments, where she leads Corporate Development. She works with corporates, investors, entrepreneurs and other stakeholders to accelerate the adoption of resilient, transformative technologies across Food & Agriculture, Energy, and Oceans.
Her focus is on turning innovation into growth—building commercial pathways, forging partnerships, and helping organizations navigate complex transitions. Before S2G, she led sales and strategy at a predictive analytics start-up and advised private equity and corporate clients on growth initiatives.
Audre holds an Honours BA from the University of Toronto, an MA from Vilnius University, and was a Fulbright Scholar. She lives in Chicago with her family.
Leah Perry
Senior Associate
Wittington Ventures
Leah Perry
Senior Associate
Wittington Ventures
Leah Perry is a Senior Associate at Wittington Ventures’ Innovation Fund, investing in seed-stage deeptech ventures in climate and health. Recognized by Corporate Knights as one of Canada’s Top 30 Under 30 Sustainability Leaders (2022), she brings over a decade of experience supporting Canadian startups through roles at MaRS Discovery District and Export Development Canada, where she helped ventures navigate capital journeys across food and agtech, renewable energy, alternative materials, and the circular economy. At MaRS, Leah also founded the Women in Cleantech network, reflecting her commitment to advancing diversity in the climate sector. She holds an MBA from the Schulich School of Business, specializing in impact investing and sustainable finance.
Laura Arrell
Managing Director
The Arrell Family Foundation and Nya Ventures
Laura Arrell
Managing Director
The Arrell Family Foundation and Nya Ventures
Having spent most of her earlier career on Bay Street at Raymond James in US Institutional Sales, Laura has worked for the past decade as managing director at The Arrell Family Foundation. The foundations mission is “To Improve Human and Planetary Health Through Food” and Laura has extensive experience working to address food insecurity and transform food systems by supporting advocacy and policy work, through public and private partnerships, and as an advisor to Arrell Food Institute at University of Guelph. In early 2025 she joined Nya Ventures as venture partner, investing in innovation in deep tech in Food and Agriculture.
Attend our mission launch event on October 2!
Join us on October 2 to learn how this mission aims to accelerate the adoption of innovative technologies to create more resilient food systems.