Canada Launches $1 Billion Food-Link Fund to Reshape Food Distribution

Canada is launching a 10-year, $1 billion Food-Link Fund aimed at changing how food moves between producers, wholesalers, independent retailers and consumers. The program is part of the federal government’s $3.2 billion National Food Security Strategy.

The fund has two components: a Food Terminal Fund for large-scale wholesale infrastructure and a Food Hub Program for regional aggregation, processing and distribution. The Food Terminal Fund alone will provide $568 million for the development or expansion of a select number of wholesale food terminals.

The policy directly targets concentration and distribution costs

The government says Canada’s food system has gaps in wholesale alternatives, refrigerated storage, regional distribution and transport. It is explicitly linking the new infrastructure to greater grocery competition by giving independent retailers more ways to source food without relying on distribution systems controlled by major chains.

Eligible investment can include cold storage, transportation, food processing and packaging, digital systems and facility upgrades. The regional hub component is designed to connect smaller producers with nearby stores, institutions and consumers where a full-scale terminal would not be viable.

Canada already has a model in Toronto

The Ontario Food Terminal distributes roughly two billion pounds of produce a year and serves thousands of registered buyers. The federal strategy points to terminal-style infrastructure as a way to aggregate supply at scale, lower logistics friction and create a wholesale alternative for independent grocers.

Expressions of interest open October 14 and run through December 11, 2026. The economic test will be whether funded projects can materially lower handling and distribution costs, improve producer access to buyers and create durable competition rather than simply add subsidized capacity.