BioLAB Fall 2023

LAB PROFILE Willerth Lab: on the vanguard of bioprinting revolution

VOLUME 38, ISSUE 3 • FALL 2023

APPLICATION NOTE Exploring the growing range of clinical 3D bioprinting applications

BIOPRINTING

THE FUTURE

Bioengineering and materials science on the leading edge of innovation

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GUEST EDITORIAL

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NEWSMAKER

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BIOPRINTING HUMAN TISSUES: DRUG SCREENING, IMPLANTS AND BEYOND THE HEART OF THE MATTER

Funding helping to advance study of rare genetic diseases

LAB PROFILE

PRINTING THE FUTURE

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University of Victoria professor on vanguard of bioprinting revolution

HOLDING THE FUTURE IN YOUR HAND Handheld bioprinting is an innovation with huge potential, says Mohsen Akbari, a bioprinting engineer

FIGHTING ASTHMA AND LUNG DISEASE Creating a human airway with 3D bioprinting LOOK INSIDE FOR YOUR COPY OF COMPANY PROFILE

ENGINEERING THE FUTURE OF DRUG DISCOVERY

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Revolutionary 3D bioprinting technology helping to optimize the drug development process » The science of food and beverage

APPLICATION NOTE

WHAT’S BEING PRINTED?

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VOLUME 38 • ISSUE 3 • FALL 2023

A list of the growing number of clinical applications for 3D bioprinting technology

BIOLAB BUSINESS

SUZUKI MATTERS 7 CANADIAN NEWS 8 WORLDWIDE NEWS 9 LABWARE 26

Optimizing the

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food supply chain REDUCING THE INDUSTRY’S CARBON FOOTPRINT

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EDITOR’S NOTE

THE PRECIPICE OF A LIFE SCIENCES REVOLUTION

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PUBLISHER & CEO

Christopher J. Forbes cforbes@dvtail.com

MANAGING EDITOR

Sean Tarry starry@dvtail.com

COPY EDITOR

Mitchell Brown

CONTRIBUTORS

Ian Hanington Robert Price David Suzuki Stephanie Willerth

SENIOR ACCOUNT EXECUTIVE

Marlene Mignardi mmignardi@dvtail.com

ART DIRECTOR

Charlene Everest ceverest@dvtail.com

SECRETARY/ TREASURER

Susan A. Browne

MARKETING MANAGER

Stephanie Wilson swilson@dvtail.com

PRODUCTION MANAGER

Crystal Himes chimes@dvtail.com

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here’s no real sense in trying to influence or manage the speed and direction of innovation within the life sciences sector. It’s moving headlong into the future, with or without our intervention. As a result, because of the very nature of the research in question – one that is forever seeking answers, venturing into the unknown, and pushing recognized boundaries, it’s inevitable that we, at times, will find ourselves on the precipice of a shift or transformation that presents us with the opportunity to explore new ways of doing things.

It’s with this understanding that this issue of BioLab Business magazine steps inside the world of bioprinting to find out from those working within the field what the current state of the technology is, its limitations at present, and the breathtaking possibilities that this groundbreaking innovation poses for the future of health and medicine.

We speak with Mohsen Akbari, a ten-year veteran within the field of bioprinting and associate professor at the University of Victoria about the work that he and his team have been responsible for, resulting in the development of a hand-held microfluidic device that can deliver multiple materials sequentially or simultaneously to the site of an injury, potentially changing the way a number of injuries are treated.

When it comes to fighting diseases and ailments that are not fully understood by medical professionals, 3D bioprinting technology is helping to fill knowledge gaps. We highlight the ways in which Carleton University Systems and Computer Engineering researcher Leila Mostaço-Guidolin is combining advanced microscopy imaging techniques and 3D bioprinting to develop functional models of the human airway to better understand asthma and other lung diseases, and remedies that might be more effective.

The Willerth Lab is profiled, exploring the cutting-edge developments that are taking place in the Victoria-based laboratory where human brain tissue is being developed using patient derived stem cells. And, we sit down with Lab Founder, Stephanie Willerth, to discuss the vanguard of the bioprinting revolution.

We also feature VoxCell BioInnovation – a tissue engineering company that’s promising to change the drug development process forever with its groundbreaking 3D bioprinting technology and creation of human-like tissue models.

As we stand on the precipice of a scientific revolution, during a moment in time when technological tools and advancements are allowing medical professionals to better understand a number of different ailments and diseases, the future of life sciences has never been brighter. And, as bioprinting technology innovation continues, so too does the amazing work that’s being performed Chris Forbes by researchers and scientists all across the country.

PUBLISHER & CEO

GUEST EDITORIAL

BIOPRINTING HUMAN TISSUES:

DRUG SCREENING, IMPLANTS AND BEYOND

BY DR. STEPHANIE WILLERTH, CEO OF AXOLOTL BIOSCIENCES AND FULL PROFESSOR OF BIOMEDICAL ENGINEERING AT THE UNIVERSITY OF VICTORIA

companies exemplify the massive potential of 3D bioprinting to revolutionize the drug screening process and how cell therapies, particularly for tissue therapeutics, are produced.

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he introduction to the TV show Westworld highlights the potential promise and nightmare scenarios that could arise from using 3D bioprinting technology to create a variety of objects, including living animals and humanlike robots. 3D bioprinting – a subset of additive manufacturing – employs novel “bioinks” as filaments to produce cell-laden tissues based on computer-aided design files. Although these designs are typically less complex than those used in traditional 3D printing with plastic filament, these 3D bioprinted tissue models are utilized in applications for a variety of problems, including in vitro and in vivo studies.

CELL TISSUE PRODUCTION One notable application is the production of tissues using patient-derived stem cells to generate healthy and disease models. These models are useful and relevant when screening potential drug targets, determining the drug’s efficacy, and ensuring the drug is non-toxic in humanized systems. Various studies have demonstrated the successful bioprinting of tissues with clinically relevant phenotypes using induced pluripotent stem cells derived from patients with neurodegenerative or cardiac diseases. Additionally, a number of research groups have harnessed the power of 3D bioprinting to generate cancer models using patient-derived cells, offering a powerful alternative to the currently used animal models, which lack immune systems – making it harder to test the efficacy of cellbased immunotherapies. Given the power of bioprinting to generate large quantities of tissues for drug screening, this has prompted many hospitals to implement such systems to enable

personalized drug screening of targets on tissues produced using the patient’s own cells.

TECHNOLOGICAL APPLICATIONS Several companies, including 3D Biotherapeutics in New York City, Aspect Biosystems in Vancouver, B.C., and Dimension Inx in Chicago utilize this exciting technology to generate tissues for clinical applications. 3D Biotherapeutics made waves last summer when it implanted its AuriNovo™ bioprinted cartilage implants into Microtia patients clinically. Recently, Aspect Biosystems announced a major partnership with NovoNordisk, using their novel clinical grade 3D bioprinter to generate 3D therapeutic bioprinted tissues which will serve as disease-modifying treatments for diabetes and obesity. Additionally, Dimension Inx focuses on therapeutic applications, particularly in the reproductive space, by bioprinting ovaries as a treatment for infertility.

This work serves as a valuable complement to work conducted by my team in collaboration with the Flannigan group at the University of British Columbia where we bioprinted testicular tubules from patient-derived sperm stem cells.

All of these companies exemplify the massive potential of 3D bioprinting to revolutionize the drug screening process and how cell therapies, particularly for tissue therapeutics, are produced. The technology, especially with respect to the high-end bioprinters used for clinical applications, has rapidly evolved. Thus, these hardware developments have enabled advances with respect to the ability to print high-resolution structures within tissues. Here, I would like to highlight additional areas where major advances can be made to ensure the production

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All of these

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of clinically relevant tissue models for drug screening and therapeutic 3D bioprinted constructs in a rapid and reproducible fashion.

This area has huge potential to transform the field

by minimizing reliance on trial-and-error methods BIOLAB BUSINESS VO L U M E 3 8, I S S U E 3 • 2 0 2 3

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in designing printable structures and bioink formulations.

SMART BIOINKS One of the major areas for advancement is in the development of smart bioinks that influence the survival and function of the cells seeded inside. My start-up company – Axolotl Biosciences – has developed a patent-pending bioink called BrainPrint, which uses drug-releasing particles to guide stem cells used in the bioprinted tissue constructs to form tissues imitating the same electrical and chemical cues found in the brain. This technology is being further developed for bioprinting cardiac tissue models from patient-derived stem cells. Other smart bioinks may change their properties over time or in response to signals such as cytokines secreted by the cell encapsulated inside, or the presence of specific wavelengths of light.

MACHINE LEARNING Machine learning, which employs computer-driven algorithms to solve problems, can also find applications in 3D bioprinting. For example, Hyperganic uses its algorithms to generate complex structures that mimic those found in nature, offering an inspired approach to designing tissues. Machine learning can also be used to predict the optimal properties

of a bioink given its constituent components and the target application.

This area has huge potential to transform the field by minimizing reliance on trial-and-error methods in designing printable structures and bioink formulations.

BIOREACTORS In addition to producing cutting-edge bioinks to generate high-quality human tissue models, addressing the challenges regarding the production of large numbers of high-quality cells can be achieved by using bioreactors.

However, culturing patient-derived stem cells can be challenging even when using 2D culture substrates, making scaling up the process another area where advanced manufacturing can be used to enhance the 3D bioprinting process.

EXCITING FUTURE Overall, the field of 3D bioprinting is always advancing, bringing us closer to making the technology depicted in Westworld a reality. With continuous progression in bioprinting technology, the potential for personalized medicine, tissue therapeutics, and drug development becomes increasingly promising. As we overcome challenges and make breakthroughs in smart bioinks, machine learning applications, and large-scale cell production, the potential for 3D bioprinting to reshape medicine is vast and thrilling.

SUZUKI MATTERS

BY DAVID SUZUKI with contributions from The David Suzuki

LIFE-FILLED AND LIFE-GIVING, SOIL IS TOO PRECIOUS TO WASTE

Dr. David Suzuki is a scientist, broadcaster, author, and co-founder of the David Suzuki Foundation.

Learn more at davidsuzuki.org.

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s you walk outside, watching birds take flight or a squirrel run up a tree, take a moment to consider the activity beneath your feet. A new study shows more than half the world’s life is in soil — including 90 per cent of fungi, 85 per cent of plants and more than 50 per cent of bacteria. Just a teaspoon of healthy soil can contain up to a billion bacteria and more than a kilometre of fungi, Nature reports.

That makes soil “the singular most biodiverse habitat on Earth,” according to the study, published in the Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences. We often take soil, and the biodiversity it supports, for granted, but it’s critical to understand it.

“Organisms in soil play an outweighed impact on the balance of our planet. Their biodiversity matters because soil life affects climate change feedbacks, global food security, and even human health,” lead researcher Mark Anthony, an ecologist at the Swiss Federal Research Institute for Forest, Snow and Landscape Research, told the Guardian.

Soil, which makes up the top layer of Earth’s crust, is where we grow almost all our food. And, it’s second only to the ocean for carbon storage.

We should dig deeper into understanding it — especially because topsoil degradation and loss are a growing ecological problem. The United Nations says one-third of global soil has already been affected, mainly by intensive agricultural practices that cause and speed up erosion and runoff, nutrient and organic matter depletion and disruption of natural processes and cycles.

Soil can also be susceptible to drought and floods, especially where sustainable agricultural practices aren’t employed. Dry soils don’t support life well and can be too baked to absorb water, making them prone to erosion and nutrient loss during sudden rains, with potential flooding below from runoff.

To address the global heating that’s causing weather to become more extreme and unpredictable, making farming challenging, we must shift to renewable energy, used efficiently and wisely. But there are immediate, proven ways to protect and make better use of the soils we need to grow food — and they come with climate benefits.

Quick-growing cover plants like clover, alfalfa, barley, oats, wheat and legumes can prevent erosion, fix nitrogen, replenish nutrients, control weeds and pests, slow evaporation and reduce ground-level temperatures.

Because ploughing up topsoil to plant seeds for monoculture crops has contributed to soil loss and depletion, no-till farming — gaining

widespread acceptance worldwide — also helps, especially combined with cover crops.

The Biggest Little Farm documentary film illustrates (on a relatively small scale) how working with nature can keep soils in place and healthy while producing nutrient-rich, flavourful food, even under increasingly volatile California weather conditions.

As the farm’s website says, “healthy soil is built from the top down, which means every decision we make above it matters. In short this is why ecologically regenerative farming methods that restore biodiversity above and within the soil (cover cropping, compost application, managed grazing, etc.) create some of the most nutrient-dense and flavourful food that only nature can provide.”

Healthy soil is built from the top down, which means every decision we make above it matters.

Other methods such as agroforestry (integrating trees and shrubs with agriculture), urban and vertical agriculture, a shift toward plant-based diets, and more, can help maintain and enrich soils while safeguarding the climate, food systems, waterways, lands, and ocean.

We must also protect and restore natural lands and the soils within them. We can’t keep paving or planting over forest and wetland soils through which mycelial networks and root systems connect with nutrients, chemical processes, plants, animals and each other, providing services our health and lives depend on — oxygen production, flood control, food, carbon sequestration, animal habitat, recreational opportunities and more.

The study on soil life also reminds us that, although we’ve been developing large-scale agriculture as if we had a complete understanding of natural systems, our knowledge has been, and is still, lacking. The researchers note that their study’s margin of error is large and that there’s much still to learn. And yet, we’ve been treating this essential, life-filled, life-giving layer of Earth like we treat the rest of the planet: as if it’s there to exploit without fear of consequences.

But we’re now seeing devastating consequences.

Adopting better conservation, restoration and agricultural practices would help soil, food security, climate and health.

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Foundation's Senior Editor & Writer, IAN HANINGTON

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CANADIAN NEWS

INVESTING IN INNOVATION

I mproving the lives of patients living with kidney failure

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After years of research, development and testing, a team from the University of Saskatchewan has managed to create an enhanced membrane for dialysis machines – a breakthrough that could result in safer treatments and significantly improved quality of life for patients living with kidney failure.

Enabled by the Canadian Light Source at the University of Saskatchewan, the team of researchers, led by Dr. Amira Abdelrasoul, an associate professor with the university’s College of Engineering, were able to develop a membrane that shows dramatic improvements as compared to those that are currently being used by medical professionals in hospitals today.

One of the most evident enhancements is in the fact that some commercial membranes used today contain heparin – a medicine that is often used to reduce blood clots, which also presents the potential of incredibly serious side effects for users.

Abdelrasoul and her research team recently filed a provisional patent for one of the most effective membrane materials that they’ve developed thus far, and are hopeful that their work can positively impact the lives of the more than two million people worldwide who depend on dialysis to survive.

The Ontario provincial government has sent a message, loud and clear, that it supports the life sciences sector and that it will continue to invest in the ongoing development of innovation within the space. In fact, it was recently announced that an injection of $7.5 million will go directly toward the development of a brand-new innovation hub at the University of Waterloo as a means to grow the province’s life sciences sector.

The innovation hub, which will be built as a collaborative effort between the University of Waterloo and the City of Kitchener, will be a 90,000 square-foot Innovation Arena, and will include a health-tech incubator and a small business centre with a shared wet lab for local entrepreneurs and startups. The Innovation Arena will become a focal point in southwestern Ontario for innovation partnerships, collaboration among businesses, industry, and researchers.

The Arena, and the substantial investment behind it, are meant to serve as a foundation for the development of new health technology, the commercialization of intellectual property, and an encouragement for further investment and job creation. And, according to Ontario Premier, Doug Ford, it will also enhance the province’s standing as a leader in life science.

“It’s great to see the Team Ontario spirit in action with the University of Waterloo, the private sector and all levels of government coming together to build this world class facility. As we continue to grow our province’s life sciences sector, the new Innovation Arena will accelerate the development and commercialization of made in Ontario innovations, create new jobs and help to attract investments to Kitchener and Waterloo.”

BOASTING A BOOMING ATLANTIC BIOSCIENCE SCENE Anyone paying even the slightest bit of attention understands that the Canadian Atlantic provinces are currently a hotbed for bioscience innovation. It’s a groundswell of research and discovery that has perhaps been building relatively quietly. However, just recently, a delegation of 42 organizations travelled to attend the BIO International Convention in Boston, Massachusetts, to show off the region’s innovation and the robustness of Atlantic Canada’s bioscience ecosystem.

It's a delegation that went to the convention as a means to promote the region’s products and aptitude to develop. And, as The Honourable Ginette Petitpas Taylor, Minister of Official Languages and Minister responsible for the Atlantic Canada Opportunities Agency (ACOA), points out, it certainly didn’t disappoint.

“Once again, this year, the region’s biosciences industry demonstrated they have earned their place as leaders in the global innovation ecosystem at Bio 2023. The Atlantic Canada delegation successfully showcased new initiatives in research, innovation, skills and training, and infrastructure within the region that are helping to advance Canada's Biomanufacturing and Life Sciences Strategy. Our strong presence at the conference is a testament to the achievements and capabilities of the bioscience industry in Atlantic Canada, and ACOA is proud to support these outreach and growth opportunities for our region.”

WORLDWIDE NEWS

SOLVING THE WORLD’S MOST COMPLEX HEALTH ISSUES In a bold new collaborative partnership, research institutions in Copenhagen, Denmark have joined forces with the city’s private sector and government in an effort to address some of the most complex and pressing health challenges that are most significantly threatening the welfare of the world’s population.

Dubbed Copenhagen Life Science, the triple-helix partnership is aimed at exploring new ways of looking at prevention, developing new treatments for diseases, and uncovering novel methods by which human health can be improved. Rooted in an agreement that runs until 2030, the cross-sector partnership will also place a concerted effort toward bringing more equality in health and developing new solutions to a number of diseases, starting with obesity and mental health.

Comprised of regions, municipalities, pension companies, foundations, academia, research institutions, SMEs, startups and Copenhagen’s official convention bureau, Copenhagen CVB, Copenhagen Life Science has the opportunity to reenforce the positivity that can be borne of collaboration while providing a boost for the country’s life sciences ecosystem and fostering the continuation of innovation and scientific breakthrough.

According to the latest QS World University Rankings, the University of British Columbia (UBC) is now the 22nd ranked university in the world for life sciences and medicine.

Although UBC has a long-standing tradition of excellence when it comes to its reputation as a life sciences and medical school, consistently ranking within the top 30 or so schools globally, this is the highest ranking that the institution has ever received, up two spots from last year when it was ranked 24.

“These latest rankings reflect the university’s extraordinary community of scientists, educators, learners and staff who have come together with a shared vision to transform health for everyone,” says Dr. Dermot Kelleher, UBC’s VicePresident, Health and Dean of the Faculty of Medicine.

“Together, through inspired and collective action, our community is translating breakthrough discoveries and innovative learning experiences into better health outcomes for patients here at home and around the world.”

The extraordinary community that Kelleher refers to not only includes scientists, but scientists representing an incredibly wide range of disciplines, including those operating and educating within the university’s faculties of medicine, science, applied science, pharmaceutical sciences, dentistry, and more. And, they’re all responsible for leading global research and innovation within their fields, studying pathways to better health for Canadians and the rest of the world.

2023 Global Health Care Outlook The pandemic that changed everything

The future of global healthcare As we slowly continue to move away from the pandemic and deeper into what is being referred to as a post-pandemic world, many of the true impacts of COVID-19 are only now beginning to be realized by experts and other onlookers. And, according to a recent report developed

by Deloitte titled 2023 Global Healthcare Outlook, the pandemic and its impacts have permanently changed global healthcare. Here are what the report suggests are the three biggest influences of the pandemic on healthcare: Virtual health delivery – the pandemic accelerated acceptance of virtual healthcare among the public, attracting substantial investment in this new future of healthcare, which incorporates digital capabilities that address a range of challenges confronting the health care ecosystem, including health inequity, the rising cost of care, and workforce shortages.

Digital transformation – healthcare companies can use emerging technologies, such as AI, telehealth, blockchain, and monitoring devices, to provide more accurate diagnoses, deliver personalized treatment and predict risk or deterioration, and intervene early.

Sustainability - climate change represents humanity's single greatest health threat. Responding to this threat requires health systems that are more resilient and sustainable. Health organizations must be prepared to provide care in the wake of natural disasters, ensure the supply of medicine amid weather-related disease outbreaks, and adopt practices that reduce waste.

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UNIVERSITY OF BRITISH COLUMBIA NAMED ONE OF WORLD’S LIFE SCIENCES LEADERS

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Holding the future IN YOUR HAND

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Handheld bioprinting is an innovation with huge potential, says Mohsen Akbari, a bioprinting engineer

BY ROBERT PRICE

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he problems associated with using bioprinting to treat injuries are well documented. You can't print larger-scale tissues because of the inherently small printing capability of bioprinters. You need to grow tissues in a bioreactor before they can be used to treat an injury. And once the tissues are grown, you need to transfer them to the site of the injury

without contaminating the tissue and causing post-surgical infections. And another challenge looms large - clinicians will need to image an injury, wait a few weeks to prepare the tissue, and then print it.

“And during those first few weeks of the injury, the size and shape will most probably change, right? Because the body is a

FEATURE STORY

where Akbari saw an opportunity—the creation of a handheld bioprinter.

HANDHELD DEVICE

Bioprinters print in a three-dimensional space, primarily using biological materials like cells.

These cells are encapsulated in a medium made mostly out of water and proteins like collagen, gelatine, and hyaluronic acid typically found in the body that mimics the conditions that the cells experience.

Handheld bioprinters, like the one Akbari is developing, enables researchers and clinicians to create three-dimensional structures in situ, directly at the point of care, directly at the site of injury and disease.

Handhelds bioprinter looks like a stylus, or a pen. Akbari’s stylus is a microfluidic device with a computer-controlled system that allows the user to deliver multiple materials sequentially or simultaneously to the site of the injury and change the ink that’s being printed.

“This means that we would like to be able to, while you're using this printer, change materials on the fly without any need to change the pen itself,” says Akbari.

This is a useful development. Right now, with current printers, if users want to change the material, they have to change the pen to print or to write different inks.

The way Akbari and his colleagues accomplished this innovation was by using 3D resin printing to create microfluidic devices that look like a pen connected to different cartridges.

By applying hydraulic pressure to each of these cartridges, a user can deliver controlled amounts of different materials to the site of the injury.

The technology can print, for example, fat cells at the bottom of the injury, fibroblast cells on top of the fat cells, and keratinocytes on top of that until the entire cavity of the injury is filled.

“And then, of course, the injury will be covered and then the cells start interacting with each other until the injury is healed,” says Akbari.

One of the unique features of Akbari’s technology is the fact that it uses microfluidic printers. These allow the user to manipulate different types of flows and generate different structures and a variety of geometries, including hollow and luminal shapes, when the printer deposits the materials in strands of fibres.

In a recent paper, Akbari and his colleagues demonstrated that they can print hollow tubes. These hollow tubes can be

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dynamic environment, and then you have to redo everything again or find a way to fit this tissue into the body.”

So explains Mohsen Akbari, a veteran of the field of bioprinting for the past ten years. Currently an associate professor at the University of Victoria with affiliations with the University of British Columbia and the University of California, Irvine, Akbari plays a major role in two spin-off companies from his lab: 4M Biotech, a business developing smart wound dressing, and Apricell Biotechnology, a startup developing next generation tumour-on-a-chip technologies.

Faced with all the challenges related to treating injuries with bioprinted materials, a few groups started thinking about directly printing cells and materials at the site of injury.

One group in Australia came up with the idea of moving the printheads of the bioprinter to the injury site and asking the surgeon to print directly onto the wound—an idea that eliminated the need to transport the tissues to the body after growing them.

“The thing is that we don’t need to have those bioreactors to grow the cells,” explains Akbari. “The body will act as a bioreactor itself and provide the suitable environment for these cells to grow and remodel the thing that forms.”

Many groups started developing this idea, but they faced a new challenge: the devices that they made were only compatible with one type of photocurable material. When photocurable materials are exposed to ultraviolet light, the material cures directly at the deposition site. The problem is that not all cells are compatible with photocurable materials, and because these materials need light and photo initiators that can become toxic at high concentrations, they can lead to carcinogenic issues.

Along with these significant challenges, researchers in this field have to deal with the fact that the body is made out of many types of cells, and injuries may require several cell types.

“You want to be able to deliver multiple cells and multiple materials with different mechanical properties, chemical properties, to the site of the injury to be able to mimic the complexities of the tissues in the body,” says Akbari.

Unfortunately, older bioprinters did not have such capabilities.

That’s

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perfusable, meaning they can connect to one another. The researchers haven’t done that yet but hope to connect them to the vasculature.

The tubes are made out of gels that the researchers can seed with cells and use to mimic these endothelial layers and blood vessels typically seen in the body.

“And with that, we can bypass the issue of vascularisation, which is a major issue in the field of tissue engineering,” says Akbari.

A VISION

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One of the visions driving Akbari is to create cells using. The process will involve collecting skin cells or blood cells and using now well-established protocols to reprogram those cells into induced pluripotent stem cells. Under the right conditions, induced pluripotent stem cells can be differentiated into any type of cells in the body. Akbari plans to mix keratinocytes, fibroblasts, and fat cells from induced pluripotent stem cells with ingeniac biomaterials (bioinks) to deliver the cells directly to the site of injury.

But there are a number of barriers standing between Akbari and his vision. First, the device itself has to be validated by surgeons. “They are going to be the end users of this technology,” says Akbari.

The major barrier to regulatory approval is safety. The device itself is made from materials that are compatible with the human body, but the materials the pen prints need to be safe to humans.

“Stem cells, they can differentiate into any cells, and one of the cells that they can differentiate into is cancer cells, right? They just want to make sure that you don’t want to form tumours,” says Akbari.

Challenges like this one posed by stem cells are currently being addressed by other research groups. For now, Akbari and his colleagues will have to wait until issues related to materials are solved before they will see their technology used in clinics.

In the meantime, Akbari and his colleagues are thinking about other applications for this innovation. One is to use the handheld bioprinter in the visual arts to mix different materials and different inks without pausing to change cartridges and colours.

we can bypass the issue of vascularisation, which is a major issue in the field of tissue engineering - Mohsen Akbari

FEATURE STORY

FIGHTING ASTHMA AND LUNG DISEASE CREATING A HUMAN AIRWAY WITH 3D BIOPRINTING

BY DAN RUBINSTEIN, CARLETON UNIVERSITY

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bout 10 per cent of Canadians suffer from asthma, the most common chronic disease among children and one of the leading causes of hospitalization. Yet we don't really know why asthma makes it so difficult to breathe, so current treatments only address its symptoms and are not a long-term solution or cure.

To better understand asthma and other lung diseases and work toward more effective remedies, Carleton University

Systems and Computer Engineering researcher Leila Mostaço-Guidolin is combining a pair of cutting-edge technologies.

Mostaço-Guidolin and her colleagues in the Carleton-led TEAM (Tissue Engineering & Applied Materials) Hub are using advanced microscopy imaging techniques and 3D bioprinting to develop functional models of the human airway.

These models, and the intricate process of creating them,

FEATURE STORY

will allow researchers to see the mechanisms of asthma and other respiratory conditions at cellular and molecular levels and, ultimately, to test potential interventions.

From Tissue Sample to Accurate Model

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To replicate the human airway as accurately as possible, MostaçoGuidolin starts with a lung tissue sample obtained from an organ donor or biopsy, which is looked at under an ultra high-resolution microscope.

The highly detailed images generated are analyzed to determine which cells are present, how they're arranged and what the structure of the tissue looks like, and then a 3D bioprinter is used to "reverse engineer" this structure on an airway-like tube.

The printer uses a gelatin mix that contains collagen and proteins that occur naturally in human airways, giving the model real-world physical and chemical properties. And to further refine this process, the model itself can be microscopically imaged — "a feedback loop," explains Mostaço-Guidolin, "so we can see how closely the structure we made resembles the real tissue and whether the cells are behaving as they should."

Currently, Mostaço-Guidolin and her collaborators have a bioprinted hollow tube, with cells and proteins to give it structure, and are optimizing it so air can be perfused into the tube.

"We are trying to mimic the breathing process," she says. "The ultimate goal is to have a structure similar to human airways and lung tissues — to have them surviving and interacting with one another in this artificial environment. Then we'll be able to biochemically track what happens when the triggers of diseases like asthma make cells behave in a certain way. If you want to try to assess how a new drug might impact those cells," she adds, "you can add this drug in the model, let the cells interact for a while, track changes within the tissue and see whether the drug is promising. This is an oversimplification of the whole process, but that's one of the great applications of these in vitro models."

Which Comes First: Fibrosis or Inflammation?

Not only is asthma a debilitating condition in need of attention, its basic mechanisms are similar to those of a range of diseases involving organs other than the lungs.

People with asthma have a hard time breathing because scar tissue narrows their airways. Scar tissue is related to the excess accumulation of collagen, which leads to what is called fibrosis. Fibrosis is related to inflammation, and according to Mostaço-Guidolin, trying to figure out whether inflammation triggers more fibrosis or vice versa is a chicken-andegg situation.

"Bioprinted 3D models could be deployed to better understand the role of fibrosis in various cancers, cardiovascular diseases and other conditions," she says. "The same mechanism affects different tissues and different organs throughout the body and we don't know why this happens. To develop medicines, we need to know how we can interrupt this pathological behavior. Do we focus on the inflammation side of things, for example, or do we focus on repairing the scar tissue production?"

One of the benefits of the TEAM Hub approach is that the group brings together a cross-section of areas: researchers in biology, physics, health science and engineering are collaborating closely.

"Science has shifted a lot in the past few years," says Mostaço-Guidolin.

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We are trying to mimic the breathing process.

The ultimate goal is to have a structure similar to human airways and lung tissues — to have them surviving and interacting with one another in this artificial environment.

- Mostaço-Guidolin

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NEWSMAKER

THE HEART OF THE MATTER FUNDING HELPING TO ADVANCE STUDY OF RARE GENETIC DISEASES

BY SEAN TARRY

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hen it comes to the study of rare genetic diseases, related research is often considered by those within the field of life sciences as high-risk, high-reward. And, although the pay-off that might result from making a breakthrough or discovery with respect to rare genetic diseases might be lucrative, most see the risk associated with it – most often the potential financial loss that’s linked with the high-risk study – as preventative. However, researchers at the University of Manitoba and the Children’s Hospital Research Institute of Manitoba were recently granted $250,000 in order to advance cutting-edge three-dimensional bioprinting technology in their quest to develop patient-specific heart models of people living with rare genetic diseases.

The financial award, which will be delivered over the course of a two-year period, is support from the Government of Canada’s New Frontiers in Research Fund (NFRF) – Exploration stream - a fund that has been especially dedicated to investing in high-risk, high-reward research in an attempt to support and encourage leading-edge innovation.

MULTIDISCIPLINARY TEAM The incredible project – one which presents so much promise – is being led by Dr. Adrian West, a bioengineer and assistant professor in physiology and pathophysiology at the University of Manitoba. And, Dr. West’s research team, one of a real multidisciplinary variety, consists of Dr. Joseph Gordon, associate professor of nursing, and Dr. Brad Doble, associate professor of pediatrics and child health (cross-appointed in biochemistry and medical genetics), each from the Rady Faculty of Health Sciences. The team also received additional support from collaborating professionals with an expertise in rare metabolic diseases.

IMPROVING LIVES The type of work that’s being undertaken by Dr. West and his team is incredibly important, and is significant in the quest to find new treatments that can help improve the lives of nearly three million Canadians who suffer from an estimated 7,000 or so known rare diseases. In addition to improving the lives of so many people and their families, discovery in these areas help to lift the troublesome economic and social burden that results from such a long list of sufferers. And, it lends much needed research to the study of rare heart disease, given the fact that heart tissue samples from rare disease patients are incredibly scarce, limiting the understanding that clinicians have of the changes, both metabolic and functional, that lead to heart failure.

BETTER UNDERSTANDING OF RARE DISEASES As a means to rectify this gap in knowledge, Dr. West and his team will endeavour to work with rare heart disease patients, replicating their unique tissue cells within 3D bioprinted structures. It’s an innovation and groundbreaking research that will be made available to other laboratories in order to gain input and insights from as many professionals and disciplines as possible, supporting the team’s attempt to better understand these rare diseases and discover enhanced treatments to improve the lives of people living with them The NFRF 2022 Exploration competition is funding 128 research projects that are bringing disciplines together in novel ways to form bold, innovative perspectives. The competition is administered by the Tri-agency Institutional Programs Secretariat on behalf of Canada’s three research granting agencies: the Social Sciences and Humanities Research Council, the Canadian Institutes of Health Research and the Natural Sciences and Engineering Research Council.

LAB PROFILE

UNIVERSITY OF VICTORIA PROFESSOR ON VANGUARD OF BIOPRINTING REVOLUTION

BY ROBERT PRICE

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riginally from Missouri, Stephanie Willerth’s fascination with biology started at an early age. Her high school thesis was on stem cell differentiation, a topic of great scientific and ethical interest in the mid-1990s when Dolly was being cloned in Scotland.

Willerth completed a double major in

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PRINTING THE FUTURE

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LAB PROFILE

biology and chemical engineering at MIT because, she says, she was “really interested in applying engineering to biological problems.” She took this interest to Washington University in St. Louis, where she completed a PhD with a focus on how to differentiate stem cells into neural tissues using biomaterials.

After a postdoc at Berkeley, Willerth landed a faculty job at the University of Victoria in 2010.

“I was one of those people who always wanted to be a professor,” she says, Today, she holds a joint position between the university's medical engineering department and its Division of Medical Sciences.

What she does in her lab—printing human tissues—isn’t well-known outside her field, and is instead the stuff of science fiction.

Intrigue

When bioprinting emerged as a new technology, Willerth was immediately intrigued.

“Bioprinting would essentially enable us to make a lot more tissues with a lot less work and, in theory, be much more reproducible,” she says.

But as is the case with most new technologies, the earliest versions had limited functionality. In the “olden days” of the 2010s, researchers had to pipette bioinks manually and make many dozens of tissues at a time by hand, a tedious process that cost time and money.

Another more significant problem stemmed from the

delicate nature of bioinks.

“With cells, you can't heat them up that much or they'll die, and you can't treat them too harshly or they'll die. So, you have to make a special formulation. And what's easiest to print with is not what cells are happiest with,” says Willerth.

This was a problem that demanded a solution—one Willerth supplied. Her lab developed a produced a printable version of bioink for neural cells using fibrillin, a blood protein. Before her lab’s work, a scientist printing neural stem cells would discover that half of those cells would die during the printing process. With Willerth’s ink—which prints at density of 1,000,000 to 5,000,000 cells per millilitre volumetrically— around 90 per cent of those same cells live.

“It was definitely a big change and a big advancement with our ink technology,” she says.

Eventually, other professors were asking Willerth why she wasn’t selling her ink. In 2020, her lab spun off Axolotl BioscienceS to allow others to access her high performing bioink. Named after a species of Mexican salamander, Axolotl Biosciences sells a product called TissuePrint, a base ink used to print different types of tissues. The company is beta testing BrainPrint, a second product that makes it easier to print neural tissues similar to those found in the brain.

Xeroxing the brain

Bioprinted tissues allow researchers to answer to questions about human biology that they can't get from mouse cells.

One area of focus for Willerth is brain tissue. It’s not easy

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Wellerth’s lab shares communal space on the third floor of the medical science building at the University of Victoria. The space doubles as the Axolotl Bioscience facility. The lab is fully stocked to advance research in the bioink space, with plate readers, PCRs, flow cytometers, tissue culture hoods, incubators, and baby incubators for making the bioink. The lab has microscopes, fridges and freezers everywhere, centrifuges for splitting down cells, a water bath for warming up cells, and spaces for processing RNA. All the tissue culture work and the bioprinting is done a BSL 2.

LAB PROFILE

Work like the kind Willerth performs has the potential to push personalized medicine beyond its current limits. What better way to understand how a drug will operate inside a particular brain than to Xerox that brain?

Willerth’s lab is also using 3D printing as a tool to screen cancer drugs. In a recent paper, she explains how her lab cultured cancer cells in three dimensions to make a tumour. This development produces a model that is much more realistic than a traditional two-dimensional cell culture produced in an in vivo setting. Those traditional methods produce a model tumour that lays flat. Because the tumour tissue lays flat and only a few cells thick, it's easy to kill the tumour.

But with 3D models, researchers can produce something that looks and functions more like the tumours that grow

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to acquire brain tissue in order to study it. And we’re currently unable to know whether or not a person has Alzheimer’s until after that person has died, so Willerth is bio-printing brain tissue in her lab.

Her lab produces brain tissue using patient derived stem cells. To produce the brain tissue, her lab draws blood from a patient in the clinic. The lab then reprograms those blood cells into stem cells and then converts those stem cells into neural cells. With that sample of neural cells, the lab can then cultivate them, turn them into “ink,” and use them to print the neural tissue. The researchers can then study how the disease will progress in ways that you can’t in a living human.

“We can actually study the patients themselves to understand both their biology and to find potential drugs for treatment,” says Willerth.

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A CADILLAC YOU CAN’T DRIVE A number of manufacturers are creating bio printers, each with their own functions and advantages. This creates huge advantages for researchers—but only if they know how to use them.

Bioprinters are sophisticated machines that require expertise in cell biology and engineering to use them well—skills that Willerth’s lab has in abundance.

But Willerth says she's been places that have “these super fancy high end bio printers and no one's using them because the technology is too complex.”

Willerth refers to a place she visited “that will remain nameless” that had purchased a $300,000 bio printer without having anybody on staff who knew how to use it. On her visit, she asked them what they do with the bio printer, since it can print complex tissues. They replied, “Oh, we just print collagen cylinders,” which is like having a Cadillac rusting on blocks in the garage.

inside the human body and prove more resistant to therapies than old 2D tumour models.

What’s coming next

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As for the future, Willerth thinks we'll see 3D bioprinting facilities inside hospitals. Patients will come in for a biopsy, clinicians will place those biopsies in bio reactors to scale up cell production, and then use the batches of cells to print the patients’ tissues and hit them with different drugs to see which one treats the disease best.

“I really think it's going to go towards a much more precise medical effort,” says Willerth.

The technology acts like a magnifying glass, allowing researchers to zoom in on the differences between each individual type of disease.

“I think that this [development] has been helpful in trying to sort out some of those very basic biology questions,” she says.

Outside the hospital setting, Willerth sees a revolution heading to the world of cosmetic surgery, thanks to bioprinting. Printed skin will transform the lives of burn victims, allowing for greater flexibility in how doctors treat severe injuries and deformities.

To give one example of what’s already happening, look to 3D Biotherapeutics, a company associated with Cornell University. In 2020, those researchers used 3D printing to reconstruct ears for people born with ear deformities.

They scanned the person’s healthy ear, printed a copy of the ear using mesenchymal stem cells, and then implanted the printed ear onto the person’s head.

“These tissues are going into people,” says Willerth.

Cosmetics testing will change, too. Governments around the world are passing legislation to reduce the harm to animals. The opportunity afforded by sheets skin that can

printed and used to test lipstick, blush, and other balms and cosmetics will go a long way to reducing costs and minimizing animal deaths.

A long way off

The far future, however, is still a long way off. Printing skin and attaching it to a person can be undone if the skin fails to take—you simply take it off. Using bioprinting to deal with cardiac and neural diseases will take more time to develop, since you can’t easily take a badly printed heart out of a person.

Right now, the costs associated with 3D printing are high.

Neural stem cells, for example, are picky and require a lot of labour. And, a good bio reactive product that can scale up production doesn’t currently exist. Developing larger organs poses technical challenges that haven’t yet been mastered, in particular the requirement to develop vasculature.

“Getting vasculature is really challenging because in your body your blood vessels have blood flow,” explains Willerth.

“How do you achieve that in your bio print, while keeping the rest of the cells around alive?”

And there are ethical issues still to thrash out.

There's an ongoing controversy about how big scientists can make their 3D printed brains before they start thinking.

“That's where it gets sort of sci-fi-ish,” says Willerth.

Some researchers worry that cultivating small brains could lead to something like creating brains inside vats.

While some researchers say that it’s impossible to recreate a thought inside a dish, others swear they observe brain waves in the brain material, and some even think they can train brains to operate robots. Willerth says she’s somewhere in the middle.

“I'm just not sure how you would know [the brain is thinking],” she says.

COMPANY PROFILE

NGINEERING THE E FUTURE OF DRUG DISCOVERY Revolutionary 3D bioprinting technology helping to optimize the drug development process

B I O L A B M AG.C O M

BY SEAN TARRY

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COMPANY PROFILE

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he current and future state of drug discovery in Canada and across the globe is very much rooted in, and on the best of days reliant upon, innovation and scientific breakthrough. It’s an essential component on the journey toward affecting meaningful and medical revelations. And, one company that seems to possess the passion, drive, dedication and commitment necessary to continue pushing the boundaries of technological capabilities in order to positively impact the future of human health and wellness is VoxCell BioInnovations.

In fact, according to Kevin Vos, the company’s Director of Business Development and Strategic Alliances, it’s on the verge of forever changing the way the drug development process works, for the betterment of all stakeholders involved.

“VoxCell BioInnovations is a tissue engineering company that uses 3D bioprinting technology to optimize the drug development process,” he explains. “Our specialty is in oncology and providing models for the development of therapeutics in cancer. We've done this by developing all of our own technology, serving as a bit of a one stop shop in 3D bioprinting tissue engineering.

We actually developed Canada's first high resolution 3D bioprinter which has such high resolution that its ten-times higher than the smallest blood vessel in the human body, allowing us to create extremely detailed tissue models. And, we combine that high resolution 3D bioprinter with our own biologics, making the inks in-house, customizing them to be tissue-specific. If we want to study breast cancer, we make sure that the tissue model we create matches the chemical composition and mechanical properties of a breast tumour.

We then combine that with our own vascularisation software that enables us to custom design what the vasculature is going to look like.”

MULTIDISCIPLINARY TEAM The work that VoxCell BioInnovations are currently undertaking could potentially prove to pave the way forward when it comes to the development of human tissue models made specific. What’s more important, however, is the fact that, by facilitating a near-perfect confluence of science, technology and human understanding, the team at VoxCell BioInnovations is creating artificial biopsy samples for drug screening and therapeutic development, optimizing the drug development process and providing a platform from which better clinical insights can be gained. And, to pull this type of achievement off, the team, explains Vos, needs to be multidisciplinary and possessing a collaborative spirit.

“It's really important that the work we do at VoxCell is approached with a holistic perspective and mindset,” he says. “We have a number of different scientists who all understand the cancer microenvironment and how a tumor interacts with things, informing the design of the model in order to make it as human-like as possible. We have biomedical engineers who actually operate the printer, executing the tissue printing.

We also have hardware engineers who are the people who actually build and maintain the printers, executing all of the prototyping, including the building of our profusion chambers, which are microfluidic devices that our tissues sit in. And we’ve got our software team as well. There are a number of different expertise required within the company to create these models, and a host of really great talent that’s come together to make it happen.”

MORE PREDICTIVE TOOLS And make it happen, VoxCell BioInnovations certainly does, quickly transforming the drug development process, shortening the time that it takes for the potential efficacy of drugs to be identified. And, the work that the company’s doing is also helping to save developers and researchers money. In North America, about $60 billion US is being spent each year on failed trials just in oncology. And, according to Vos, by providing more predictive tools, the efficiency of scientists is enhanced, and the chances of achieving success, quicker, increase.

“What we’ve seen over the course of the past 10 or 15 years within the area of drug development is a definite rise in the need for more human-like, more predictive preclinical tools.” he asserts. “We’re currently seeing 95 per cent of all drugs fail within the traditional drug development process. And, too many of them are

VoxCell BioInnovations is a tissue engineering company that uses 3D bioprinting technology to optimize the drug development process. Our specialty is in oncology and providing models for the development of therapeutics in cancer.

- Kevin Vos

COMPANY PROFILE

CREATING POSITIVE IMPACT These are some of the ways by which VoxCell BioInnovations is attempting to create a positive impact within the field of oncology and support improvements to the world of drug development and testing. However, in order to have access to the financial wherewithal that startups and other businesses need in order to grow and succeed, investment is required. In fact, from Vos’ point-of-view, aside from the groundbreaking work that the company does, there aren’t many things that are more important than investing partners.

“Investments mean everything with respect to supporting the work that we do,” he says. “We're sort of the first company involved in this bioprinting vascularized cancer tissue model space. And it always seems to be a little more challenging when you’re bringing something brand new to the market.

There's always going to be a little bit of skepticism and a need to actually see innovation work. So, building meaningful partnerships is incredibly important to us. We currently have one ongoing here in BC with the BC Cancer Agency and have about eight projects scheduled for 2024 and early 2025 to really help validate our technology and start working on therapeutic development for some biopharmaceutical companies.”

GLOBAL STANDARD It’s all very impressive progress made by such a young company. But, in speaking with Vos, it definitely doesn’t seem as though VoxCell BioInnovations has any plans on slowing any time soon. In fact, he suggests that there are still quite a few possibilities and potential for growth remaining going forward.

“With the diversity of our technology, there's a lot of different directions that we can go. But in the next one to three years, what we're really focused on becoming the sort of global standard in creating 3D cancer models for therapeutic development. Down the road, we have our eye on the personalized medicine side of things and helping individual patients make decisions based on the therapeutics that work best for them. But, for now, we’re intent on continuing to develop our customized tissue models and, as a result, lending to streamline the drug development process and making it more efficient going forward.”

We're really focused on is becoming the sort of global standard in creating 3D cancer models for therapeutic development. Down the road, we have our eye on the personalized medicine.

- Kevin Vos

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deemed failure too late, after they’ve been injected into humans. With bioprinting, we’re not going to see a change to the fact that 95 per cent of drugs fail to make it to market. But, by introducing human-like models that can be tested on and created patient-specific, we’ll be able to identify failures earlier in the development process, allowing companies a higher chance of success for the drugs that are taken forward to clinical trials, saving the time it takes to develop life saving therapeutics, while also reducing the associated costs that are required in doing so.”

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WHAT’S BEING

PRINTED? A list of the growing number of clinical applications for 3D bioprinting technology

BY SEAN TARRY

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APPLICATION NOTE

ot long ago, 3D bioprinting technology was an innovation reserved for the most complex cases. However, following recent advancements, the use of the innovation is becoming a little more widely and more frequently used, paving the way forward toward a bioprinted future. Here are just some of the possible current applications for 3D bioprinting technology:

Orthopedics - An obvious area in which to leverage 3D bioprinting technology, current applications include using anatomical models to visualize and plan for fracture repairs, creating implants for arthroplasty, preparing contour plates and surgical guides, and the creation of lightweight, custom casts.

Dentistry – a number of advances have been made using dental imaging to enhance the production and use of orthodontics; dental crowns and partial dentures; removable complete dentures; oral surgery, surgical guides placed over teeth to align drills; access guides for root canals; replica teeth to prepare autotransplantation; dental implants; and more.

Vascular and endovascular surgery - This is an area where quite a few advances have been made in recent years and is particularly useful in helping clinicians visualize anatomical structures. Within just the last few years, 3D bioprinting technology has been leveraged to develop 3D models for infrarenal and juxtarenal arteries, abdominal aortic aneurysm, and thoracic aorta pathology. In addition, 3D prints of vessel pathologies have also been used to better understand anatomy and post-surgical complications.

Surgery – the wonders of 3D bioprinting is incredibly useful in helping surgeons better understand and prepare for upcoming procedures, enhancing their efficiency and ability to provide patient-specific care. Areas of research in surgical applications include surgical guides, models for surgical planning, and custom implants.

Neurosurgery - Patient care has benefitted immensely as a result of advances around the use of bioprinting technology to help support neurosurgery, by allowing clinicians to observe small and intricate structures inside the nervous system. Due to the complexity of neurosurgery procedures, bioprinting technology significantly helps surgeons better understand and visualize complex structures when planning a procedure. The use of 3D bioprinting technology in neurosurgery includes the development of patient-specific anatomical models, the design of devices to assess and treat neurosurgical conditions, and biological tissue-engineered implants.

Plastic and reconstructive surgery - Another area of focus that lends very nicely to applications 3D bioprinting technology is that of plastic and reconstructive surgery, within which 3D printing is used for procedural planning, the creation of surgical tools, and the customization of implants.

The technology has been used in maxillofacial surgery, dental implant surgery, mandibular reconstruction, orthognathic surgery, and midface reconstruction, in addition to a number of other more common applications. And, though its use is already becoming widespread within plastic and reconstructive surgery, as the increased availability of affordable equipment helps enhance the ability of clinicians to make highly patient-specific products, their use and application will only increase, too.

Other Surgeries - Applications of 3D bioprinting technology are also found in a number of other types of surgical environments and procedures, including hepatobiliary surgery, urology and renal surgery, and cardiac surgery. In each case and type of procedure, the technology is used to help clinicians visualize anatomical structures and plan for their surgeries, in addition to a number of other common applications.

As 3D bioprinting technology advances and the capabilities of the equipment improves every day, becoming more accurate and intuitive, the applications of its use will no doubt continue to increase. And, as it does, the future of life sciences in the country unfolds further, enhancing the health and wellbeing of Canadians from coast-to-coast-to-coast.

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Weighing things up An automatic mass comparator, the AK-4/100 series is intended for automatic determination of weight’s mass deviations with operator’s activity limited to the minimum.

The comparator enables determining deviations of three tested weights in a single cycle. Designed to compare weights from 10 g to 100 g., the instrument is commonly applicable in mass measuring laboratories, and particularly in certification units for weights classes E and F. The supervising part of the mass comparator is a digital module which cooperates with a controller of instrument’s mechanical components. The digital module and the automatic loader are located in the mass comparator’s weighing chamber and are operated by means of digital display, enabling the separation of the instrument’s weighing chamber from the influence of ambient conditions. www.krinslifescienceslab.ca

Measuring up The EVOM™ Manual now has automatic data logging, has a low noise design that offers greater resolution and accuracy in your TEER measurement protocol, and automatic 20X sample averaging, which improves accuracy and stability. Users can choose from the adjustable fixed measurement currents (2, 4 or 10 μA). The resistance measurements auto range from 1 Ω to 100,000 Ω or with three fixed current ranges. And, the reliable low current, low voltage design prevents metal ion transport, and boasts fast resistance stabilization on low levels under 200 Ω with resolution to 0.1 Ω. In addition, users can get automatic plate indexing operation with or without control well subtraction for resistance and potential difference (PD) measurements, and continuous data logging via USB (PC, Mac, Linux). www.wpiinc.com

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Cell capture made easy The Genesis System with Celselect Slides Technology, automates the capture of cells from liquid biopsies and other sample types for recovery or on-slide immunolabeling. Utilizing 56,400 individual microchambers with a pore size that captures cells in the range of 8-30 µm, enriched cells can be recovered for downstream analysis such as single-cell genomics, digital PCR, or culture. Alternatively, cells can be immunolabeled on-slide for immunofluorescent applications such as enumeration. For applications which require protocol optimization or creation of new protocols for custom reagents or antibody labeling, the Genesis Protocol Builder Software Tool enables adjustment of parameters such as reagent dispensing, pump pressures, and incubation settings. Building custom protocols is performed on the user's local computer. www.bio-rad.com

What’s the air like?

The Neutec Group Spin Air Microbial Air Samplers includes a rotating plate holder for even surface spread of microorganisms, enabling sampling by volume for higher accuracy and reproducibility.

Utilizing standard 60mm or 90mm agar plates, which are easy to find and inexpensive, a rechargeable battery operated for remote sampling, and a delayed activation mode to avoid collector’s contamination contribution, the Neutec Group Spin Air Microbial Air Sampler is a great addition to any air sampling toolkit. In addition, optional duplicate simultaneous sampling is possible by combining two units. www.fishersci.ca

Keeping it cool Atlantis Bioscience’s 2°C~8°C Pharmacy/ Lab Refrigerators provide users with high accuracy temperature control via high sensitivity sensors, helping to keep the temperature within 2-8°C. Leveraging renowned compressor and condenser refrigerator technology, the 2°C~8°C Pharmacy/Lab Refrigerators provides better cool performance, while HCFC-free refrigerant ensures environmental protection and safety. Featuring front opening lockable door with full height handle, the refrigerator is equipped with audible and visual alarms that detect high and low temperature, sensor failures, power failures, and open or ajar doors. Made of high-quality steel, the 2°C~8°C Pharmacy/Lab Refrigerator is durable and easy to clean www.atlantisbioscience.com

Close analysis The BD LSRFortessa™ X-20 Cell Analyzer has been designed for core lab dependability, and can be configured with up to 5 lasers to detect up to 20 parameters simultaneously to support ever increasing demands in multicolour flow cytometry. BD FACSDiva™ Software controls the efficient setup, acquisition and analysis of flow cytometry data from the BD LSRFortessa™ Workstation. This software is common across BD FACS™ instrument families, including the BD FACSCanto™ Cell Analyzer and BD FACSAria™ Cell Sorter systems. This affords greater application flexibility and allows users to easily move assays from one platform to another. www.bdbiosciences.com

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» The science of food and beverage VOLUME 38 • ISSUE 3 • FALL 2023

Optimizing the REDUCING THE INDUSTRY’S CARBON FOOTPRINT

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CANADA’S FOOD SUPPLY

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s issues related to food safety and security continue to increase in significance and importance with respect to the current and future health and wellbeing of Canadians, the resilience of our food supply and the ramifications of a less-than-optimized chain are beginning to garner greater attention and elicit harsher critique among the general public. And, given the critical nature of the role that the country’s supply ecosystem plays in ensuring the availability of the food that Canadians eat every day, it comes as no surprise.

With this in mind, within this issue of Canadian Food Business, we explore some of the challenges faced by the Canadian food and beverage industries in moving product across the country, while highlighting advancements that are helping to create greater efficiencies and a more reliable and predictable supply.

Supply chain guru, Gary Newbury, contributes this issue’s Guest Editorial, identifying the most pressing challenges threatening the efficiency and growth of the Canadian food supply and those operating within Canada’s food and beverage industries, while highlighting the ways in which these challenges can be addressed and overcome.

Supply chain challenges result in a number of different outcomes, including product shortages and delays. However, none can be considered more significant than its impact on inflation and the global cost of food. Robert Kowal provides Canadian Food Business with a special contribution that analyzes the influence of inflation on consumer choices, behaviours, and ramifications for the food industry in Canada.

In an effort to gain a strong perspective on the current and future state of the Canadian food supply chain, we sit down with the Food Professor, Dr. Sylvain Charlebois. The industry veteran shares his ideas concerning the food and beverage industries biggest challenges, as well as some of the inherent opportunities, highlighting the ways in which companies’ collective determination to decarbonize their supply chains is resulting in a bit of a shift in strategy and operations.

There’s no doubting the critical nature of an optimized supply chain for those operating within the food and beverage industries. And, we hope that you and your teams find our exploration of the topic helpful in navigating current challenges while inspiring further food innovation, growth and success.

Sean Tarry EDITOR

email: biond@publicationpartners.com

BioLab Business, a sister publication of Canadian Food Business, is a proud member of BioteCanada and Life Sciences Ontario.

Publisher of BioLab Business Magazine Printed in Canada

In 2022, the Canadian Institute of Food Science & Technology (CIFST) and Canadian Food Business magazine launched a partnership to create a platform for leading experts, innovators, and scientists to showcase the latest trends, knowledge, and developments that are changing the face of Canada’s food industry today.

For further information, contact sbrowne@dvtail.com.

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FEATURES

THE IMPACT OF FOOD INFLATION

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on consumer choices, behaviours, and outcomes for the food industry in Canada

DECARBONIZING CANADA’S FOOD SUPPLY CHAIN

Goals to reduce carbon footprint from operations are influencing a shift in supply chain strategy among Canada’s food and beverage industries

3 METRICS TO 36 SCALE UP YOUR FOOD MANUFACTURING BUSINESS

standard GUEST EDITORIAL 30 NEWS BITES 32 FOODWARE 42

GUEST EDITORIAL

Pathway for enhancing Canada’s food supply chain sustainability

By Gary Newbury

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he Canadian food supply chain plays a pivotal role in ensuring a steady and reliable flow of staple and seasonal food products from “farm to fork” for Canadians. As a global producer, our ability to be a reliable trading partner is firmly wedded to seasonal flows and predictable supply. Any disturbance creates reputational risk.

Our food supply network is a complex system with a multiplicity of activities and links that came under significant pressure during pandemic restrictions; it continues to face an array of challenges impeding efficiency, sustainability, and ability to adapt to changing economic, environmental, and societal circumstances, and evolving customer tastes.

In order to make a significant change in food’s supply chain performance, we really need to look at the full network and stakeholders beyond the perfunctory view of what we buy (forecasting, sourcing and transmission of requirements), how we transport it (often across vast distances and with different modes, including sea, rail, road and sometimes air) and hand it off to the next link in the chain.

There are many challenges facing the industry including transportation constraints (costs and temporal capacity), increasing climate change events (floods, fires et al.), food safety, cybersecurity, loss prevention, inflationary pressures, consumer shifts (changing priorities and reputational risks), technological shifts, the need for process repeatability and protection of our country’s reputation. To re-engineer the efficiency of today’s supply chain network several critical challenges require urgent attention:

Labour shortage and local production capacity constraints and adaptability

Labour shortages emerged as a formidable challenge during the pandemic that were exacerbated by demographic shifts and changing workplace dynamics. The agricultural and food processing sectors remain heavily invested in manual labour.

This makes operations highly vulnerable to ongoing changes in rural populations, migrant worker availability and the perspective of younger, highly qualified workers.

Local production capacity constraints further compound such issues. The reliance on imported food products makes the supply chain susceptible to disruptions caused by global events such as trade disputes and cross border transportation challenges (alongside our winter weather challenges). If the industry was to focus on enhancing domestic agriculture production and local processing facilities, it is possible for Canada’s food security to become much more resilient.

Oligopolistic market structure

The Canadian food marketplace is dominated by a handful of large, powerful corporations and a less-than-stridentCompetition Bureau. This has led to an uneven playing field favouring the big brand processors and retailers. This market structure stifles competition and product innovation, limits consumer choices and hinders market access for small producers and new retail entrants (e.g., Aldi), as suggested by the Competition Bureau Canada Report (June 2023).

This market structure can drive pricing power disparities which can adversely affect both producers and consumers.

Lack of collaboration and innovation across food supply chains

A shortfall in either of these areas pose significant barriers to our adaptability and resilience. Collaboration across farmers, processors, distributors, retailers and research institutions are crucial for addressing waste (more than 40 per cent of production ends in landfill - a serious industrial level challenge, as well as an opportunity) and inefficiencies, as well as driving innovation in process, technology and/or product portfolio.

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1. Invest in local labour pools and focus on “local to market” production • Encourage youth engagement in agriculture and the food supply chain through educational programs, internships and mentorship initiatives – make the “farm-to-fork” supply chain enticing.

• Develop immigration policies which facilitate entry of skilled agricultural labour to ensure workforce sustainability and adaptability.

• Support and invest in technological hubs focused on automation, AI and precision farming to provide resilience and lowered cost structures.

• Invest in R&D to optimise local production techniques, such as vertical farming and hydroponics, as well as crop yield improvements.

2. Marketplace structure • Review, strengthen and enforce anti-trust regulations to create a more competitive market to shift to a more balanced equilibrium.

• Provide support and incentives for start ups and SMB food production and processing businesses to compete effectively with the big food dominant brands. Canada needs more domestic processing capacity, wholesalers and more independent food retailers to achieve higher levels of economies.

• Facilitate sharing of intermediate pooling in storage and distribution resources so big and small producers can experience similar per unit costs for their distribution activities.

• Create marketplaces and direct-to-consumer/drop ship platforms to enable direct connections between

producers and consumers locally, regionally, and nationally to improve competition and choice.

3. Collaboration and innovation • Create industry-wide platforms for knowledge and idea exchange, and collaborative problem solving, similar to bodies other countries have in which technology businesses and retailers solve industry challenges collaboratively, rather than “going it alone” missing the opportunity to share learnings and perspectives.

• Develop innovation hubs within regions which focus on production, processing and distribution performance improvements holistically.

• Support initiatives which bring together stakeholders from across the food supply chain to ideate and collaborate on performance improvement, capacity flexibility and resilience to aid policy makers in making informed investments in domestic food supply chain innovation.

• Create robust relationships between academia, government agencies and operators within the food supply chain to drive innovation at industry, activity and operational level.

The Canadian food supply chain is facing a complex set of challenges which can not be addressed in a linear/simplistic manner. The drive to sustainability and resilience marches on, and time is being burned. Addressing imbalances across labour pools, enhancing local production capacities (scaling) and flexibilities (optionalities), tackling marketplace concentration and driving innovation, are the strategic steps to building a more robust, reliable and adaptable food supply chain.

Looking holistically at the end-to-end food supply chain, the industry is likely to be able to see significant opportunities as it drives for increased consumer choice, flexibility in the face of disruption, and long-term profitability. However, time is against the industry. It is important to recognize that much more progress is needed to be made over the next two years by industry leaders, government (through regulatory reviews) and consumer advocates.

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The absence of meaningful collaboration (i.e., supply chain partners working together on eliminating waste, inefficiencies and driving continuous innovation) results in missed opportunities for greater productivity, consumer choice and long-term profitability for the industry.

To address these fundamental complexities, a multifaceted approach is essential:

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NEWS BITES

Enabling cutting-edge agricultural research In an ambitious move, the Ontario provincial government recently announced that it’s investing a whopping $343 million over five years in order to advance state-of-the-art agricultural research meant to serve the province’s farmers.

The investment comes as part of a renewed collaboration between the University of Guelph and the Agricultural Research Institute of Ontario, and the start of an

agreement between the two entities and the Ontario AgriFood Innovation Alliance. The funding will be used to help drive innovation around research that focuses on food safety and animal welfare and to help support the development of a highly skilled workforce in the province in order to facilitate further economic growth opportunities within the Ontario agri-food sector.

Boost for Alberta agriculture sector

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The future for the development of breakthrough cellular agriculture technology in the province of Alberta has never been brighter with the announcement by CULT Food Science Corp. of the formation of the brand-new Institute of Cellular Agriculture.

The unveiling is part of a collaboration between CULT Food Science Corp., the University of Alberta and New Harvest.

As part of its commitment to accelerate the development of cellular agriculture technologies to advance the future of food, CULT Food Science Corp. will provide space and support for new startups, researchers, students, entrepreneurs, and product development at Agri-Food Discovery Place in Edmonton.

In addition, the innovative strategic partnership will provide infrastructure, support, and funding opportunities for innovators and researchers, and will serve as a platform for new ventures and intellectual property development focused on creating the future of food through cellular agriculture. And, says Lejjy Gafour, CEO of CULT Food Science, it’s also a partnership that could help pave the way for the future of the cellular agriculture industry.

"We are at the horizon of an explosion of new ideas and ventures that will accelerate the global cellular agriculture industry. We are excited to be able to accelerate the launch and development of new ventures and ideas from individual founders, to supporting classic enterprises who want to adopt cellular agriculture as part of their strategy with our support."

As part of its commitment to accelerate the development of cellular agriculture technologies to advance the future of food, CULT Food Science Corp. will provide space and support for new startups, researchers, students, entrepreneurs, and product development at Agri-Food Discovery Place in Edmonton

NEWS BITES

Advancing functional ingredient development A partnership between Willow Biosciences and Kalsec was recently announced, representing the early stages of the companies’ functional ingredient development program. The pair just completed phase one of the project and are now ready to undergo a rigorous process toward commercialization – a phase of the project which includes additional research and development and scale-up work.

It's a partnership that certainly presents promise given that Kalsec focusses its efforts on providing taste and sensory, natural food protection, natural colours and advanced hops to the food and beverage industries, while Willow Biosciences specializes in the development of bio-based processes for the production of ingredients, including those for consumer care, food and beverage, and pharmaceuticals. And it’s one that each company hopes will yield innovation and success going forward.

Strengthening B.C.’s food supply The British Columbia provincial government has announced a landmark investment in the future of the province’s food security, making $200 million available in order to help ensure that British Columbians have better access to an increased supply of affordable, local food.

It’s an investment that some suggest is coming at a muchneeded time. And, according to B.C. Premier David Elby, it’s one that needs to be pointed and focussed in order for it to have the greatest impact possible.

“Food security in British Columbia requires an available, affordable and uninterrupted supply of nutritious food. At the same time, we need targeted, effective programs that support the people and communities most impacted by rising inflation, climate events and supply chain shocks.”

The investment, which comes from the Ministry of Agriculture and Food, will go toward new and enhanced programs to strengthen the province’s food supply chain and expand local food production from producers to processors and from packers to retailers; helping Indigenous communities concerning the availability and cost of food, particularly in remote and rural communities; and help agricultural producers and food processors grow their businesses.

Although the plant-based food category hasn’t necessarily capitalized on the momentum that it’s generated in spurts over the course of the past 60 years or so, it certainly hasn’t slowed with respect to innovation occurring within the space. And, as a result, there remains growth concerning the number of people adopting a plant-based diet in place of pork and/or seafood.

In fact, according to a recent survey conducted by Chefs Plate, when considering an average week, Canadians tend to eat vegetarian protein alternatives (7%) more than pork (5%) and seafood (4%).

It’s data that’s reflective of evolving tastes and eating habits among Canadians, and an indicator that adoption of vegetarianism and flexitarian diets across the country will continue, fueling plant-based proteins as a possible national economic driver with the potential to become a $25 billion industry by 2035.

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Continued plant-based innovation

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FEATURE

THE

IMPACT OF

FOOD INFLATION

ON CONSUMER CHOICES, BEHAVIOURS, AND OUTCOMES FOR THE FOOD INDUSTRY IN CANADA

By Robert Kowal

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ood inflation is an ongoing concern for consumers and businesses alike, and its impact on consumer choices, behaviours, and outcomes within the food industry cannot be understated.

Canadians have been through a sustained period of food inflation, reaching 41-year highs in 2022. According to Stats Canada, February 2023 marked the seventh consecutive month when the food inflation rate rose more than 10 per cent year-over-year. As of July 2023, it remained stubbornly high at 9.1 per cent, exceeding the national inflation rate of approximately 3 per cent. As a result, Canadians spend more of their hard-earned dollars on food and have less disposable income to spend on other things.

The hardest hit are low-income Canadians and seniors on fixed incomes. Families with lower incomes may struggle to afford healthy food options, forcing them to opt for less nutritious items and impacting their overall health. Food insecurity strains social services, as evidenced by increased Food Bank use. In March 2022, Food Banks Canada reported over 1.4 million visits monthly, of which 33.1 per cent are

children. Some reports indicate that 23 per cent of Canadians are eating less, with 1 in 5 skipping meals altogether.

Shifts in consumer choices

As the cost of food increases, consumers adjust their purchasing decisions and prioritize certain types of products over others. Consumers may opt for more affordable alternatives or seek out discounted or sale items. They may also reduce the quantity of higher-priced items they purchase or replace them with less expensive substitutes. Consequently, consumer choices may shift towards lower-cost products, generic brands, or products that offer better value for money.

This trend can lead to changes in market demand and potentially impact the sales and profitability of certain food industry segments.

Changes in consumer behaviour

Canadians struggling to stretch their food budgets may engage in more price-conscious shopping habits, such as comparing prices, using coupons, price matching, or

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Canadians struggling to stretch their food budgets may engage in more priceconscious shopping habits, such as comparing prices, using coupons, price matching, or participating in loyalty programs. These behaviours can drive increased competition among food retailers.

Economic outcomes for the food industry

The inflationary impact on the food industry goes beyond changes in consumer choices and behaviours. Food producers and manufacturers must grapple with higher input costs, such as raw materials, energy, transportation, and labour. These cost pressures may necessitate price adjustments as a means to maintain profitability, leading to potential consumer resistance and competitive pressures.

Moreover, food manufacturers and grocers are challenged to balance price increases while maintaining customer loyalty. Passing on increased costs to consumers may seem obvious, but it can lead to reduced sales volume if consumers opt for lower-cost alternatives. Sylvain Charlebois, director of the Agri-Food Analytics Lab at Dalhousie University, says the single biggest reason for food inflation remaining so high is that retailers have been gradually passing along wholesale price increases from their suppliers.

"They can't just pass along those wholesale increases all at once. There's a limit to what consumers will pay," said Charlebois. "They're already selling less food right now."

Therefore, manufacturers may need to explore strategies such as cost optimization, supplier negotiations, or value-added offerings to mitigate the impact of food inflation.

Government and policy implications

High food inflation rates can also prompt government intervention and policy considerations.

Policymakers may focus on implementing measures to address the underlying causes of food inflation, such as improving agricultural productivity, enhancing supply chain efficiency, changing tax structures, or promoting greater competition. Social assistance programs, such as food subsidies, access to food banks, or assistance for vulnerable populations, may be expanded to alleviate the burden on low-income households.

For example, on July 5th of this year, 11 million low- and moderate-income Canadians and families received their new, one-time Grocery Rebate. This targeted "inflation relief" for Canadians provided "eligible couples with two children up to an extra $467; single Canadians without children up to an extra $234; and seniors with an extra $225, on average" (In my opinion, the rebate mentioned above will provide little relief for those in need).

These interventions can have far-reaching implications for the food industry, influencing market dynamics, regulations, and competitive landscapes.

Looking ahead

Food inflation in Canada, which remains stubbornly high compared to national inflation rates, has significant implications for consumer choices, behaviours, and outcomes within the food industry. It prompts shifts in consumer choices, leading to a demand for more affordable alternatives and greater price consciousness. Consumer behaviours change as individuals adjust their meal planning and shopping habits to mitigate the impact of rising food prices. Economic outcomes for the food industry are influenced by higher input costs and the need to balance profitability with consumer expectations. Lastly, government intervention and policies may play a role in addressing the challenges posed by food inflation.

Understanding and adapting to these dynamics is essential for businesses in the food industry to navigate the changing landscape and meet the evolving needs of consumers.

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participating in loyalty programs.

These behaviours can drive increased competition among food retailers and incentivize them to offer more attractive pricing and promotions to retain and attract customers.

Higher food prices can also lead to meal planning and preparation changes. Consumers may opt for more home-cooked meals instead of dining out, increasing the demand for grocery store products while negatively impacting the food service industry. Similarly, consumers may shift towards buying foods in bulk or seeking cheaper protein and fresh produce sources. With the recent rise in purchases of local foods and visits to farmers' markets, people are bypassing the grocers altogether. These behavioural changes can significantly influence the food industry, shaping demand for specific products and altering supply chain dynamics.

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3 METRICS TO

SCALE UP YOUR FOOD MANUFACTURING BUSINESS

By Steve Burton

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ccording to a recent McKinsey report, about 80 per cent of startups that successfully launch products fail to see them through to full scale-up. “For many startups,” its report elaborates, “the challenge is no longer about securing capital—it’s about learning how to restructure themselves as fast as their products or organizations can evolve.”

Scaling up sustainably depends on your ability to make data-informed decisions. Quantity is not the same as quality; understanding big data’s strategic impact and management tactics for food businesses is integral to implementing analytics into operations. The ability to focus on what matters most for your success is key.

What are KPIs? Finding the right metrics for profitability

Metrics, or more specifically, Key Performance Indicators (KPIs) are well-defined measurements that help you monitor, analyze, and optimize operations. The challenge is that there is no one-size-fits-all solution. Food and beverage processors, especially, have unique needs compared to other manufacturing sectors; KPIs are not just metrics for financial success in the food business, they are also necessary for regulatory compliance (for food safety and traceability) and GFSI certifications demanded by customers.

The shift in industry standards towards big data is driving the adoption of automation technologies that can manage data and generate actionable insights. Real-time metrics and dashboards enable data-informed decisions that improve sales and profitability. The same McKinsey report found that 49 per cent of high-performing consumer companies had “completely integrated digital into their operating model for key areas, nearly twice the number of low performers that have.

The key differentiator of high-performing companies is that digital activities are embedded in functions and geographies and not siloed in an IT organization.”

A data-driven approach focused on key metrics will allow you to make better decisions for your business. So, what are some of the metrics that you should be monitoring?

One essential metric that all manufacturers need to track is Fulfillment Rate (or order fill rate) – the percentage of shipments you can send to customers compared to their orders.

For example, your customer orders 100 units and you ship all 100, then your fulfillment rate is 100 per cent. If you stockout and deliver 80 units, your fulfillment rate drops to 80 per cent.

Essentially, this metric reflects your ability to meet customer demand. At first glance, you might think that you should aim for 100 per cent. While some companies do achieve rates as high as 99 per cent, there is a good reason that the average is about 80 to 90 per cent. A very high fulfillment

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#1: Know your optimal fulfillment rate

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In the US food retail industry alone, lost sales due to out of stock or unsaleable items are valued at $15-20 billion every year.

Finding the right balance is specific to every industry, sector, and even business.

rate indicates that you’re storing excess inventory, which eats into your operating profit margins because inventory and storage costs money. Any waste due to expired products flushes profits down the toilet.

On the other hand, a lower fulfillment rate indicates that demand is outpacing your supply.

That gap, which is really a crack in your market that makes you vulnerable to competitors, signals an opportunity to capitalize on customer interest. In the US food retail industry alone, lost sales due to out of stock or unsaleable items are valued at $15-20 billion every year. Finding the right balance is specific to every industry, sector, and even business.

Calculating your fulfillment rate is not as simple as logging customer orders and comparing them to shipments. When sales processes an order, they need insight into available inventory (what is in stock or already allocated to other customers) and planned production in order to assess whether or not orders can be filled. In the food industry, manufacturers need to consider additional factors such as shelf life, supplier lead times, and the length of the production processes. Logistics needs to be factored in, too. Unexpected weather events might prevent a delivery, or a customer might reject a short shipment. You need to capture end results accurately and compare them to the original order.

For food manufacturers, calculating fulfillment rates requires real-time data from across your organization. Access to real-time data allows you to communicate and set customer expectations, anticipate problems, and identify real strategies to improve profitability.

Ultimately, this metric maximizes order value – and so does the next one: cost per unit.

#2: Leverage actual costing data in real-time

High-margin products are the bread and butter of any successful operation.

Can you pull data on unit costs for all your products right now and assess their profit margins? If you could, you will find that some products make you a lot more money than others. And what if the cost of an ingredient just skyrocketed? Can you reassess profitability immediately to adjust pricing accordingly? How long would it take for you to understand the impact on your bottom line?

The growing pains of scaling up your business requires the agility to react quickly to changes outside of your control. Whether there’s a supply chain disruption or a market opportunity, you need real-time visibility into production costs to maximize profitability.

In my experience, the more products a company makes, the lower their margins. Our client with the highest profit margins has only 11 products.

Developing one stellar product is tough, let alone trying to optimize dozens or hundreds. Real-time data is invaluable, but analysis can be difficult. With the right KPIs and the right technology, you can pin down this challenging metric to drive your pricing decisions.

Unit cost is calculated with three cost categories (raw materials, labour,

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and overhead), usually working from “standard” costing models updated periodically by accountants. Even if a more progressive company manages to update standard costing every quarter, that may still lag behind today’s market. It is best to collect actual costing on products at the lot code level, so you need a unified system to connect data from different sources within your organization (especially purchasing, logistics, and production) to gain a complete insight into your costs.

Imagine having the ability to check actual production costs against your models at any time – especially when launching a new product.

For small businesses looking to scale, there isn’t much room for error when it comes to product optimization.

Smart growth requires metrics, insights, and action

#3: Optimize your operations with equipment performance metrics

About Steven Burton Founder and CEO of Icicle Technologies Inc., Steven Burton is the architect of the award-winning food production management system, Icicle ERP. Through the development of advanced food safety technology based on over a decade of sophisticated software development expertise, Burton has taken Icicle beyond document management and food safety to offer a complete solution for smart automation, improving quality standards, production efficiency, and expanding growth opportunities for all types of food businesses. This article is adapted from Steve’s webinar presentation “Maximizing Margins for Food Production,” hosted by BC Food & Beverage in October 2022.

Poor maintenance costs you by lowering profitability and impeding growth. Overall Equipment Effectiveness (OEE) is a collection of metrics manufacturers use to quantify equipment production performance. It can be evaluated at the individual machine or line level. For example, a high-speed production line resulting in 25 per cent discarded or reworked product is a huge problem.

An OEE score is calculated by multiplying machine availability x performance x quality.

These can be broken down further: • machine availability = run time v planned production time • performance = (total count/run time)/ideal run rate • quality = good count v units started.

Scaling up with healthy profit margins relies upon access to strategic information and smart data: not just lifeless numbers, but living, real-time context that you can access and use to make excellent business decisions. A low fulfillment rate could signal a problem with equipment maintenance causing production downtime. This could indicate the need to invest in higher capacity equipment or to adjust your maintenance schedule.

Well-defined metrics transformed into insights can be transformed into real action. The next question is, how can you use these data-driven metrics to accomplish your goals?

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Whether there’s a supply chain disruption or a market opportunity, you need real-time visibility into production costs to maximize profitability.

OEE for world-class manufacturers is 85 per cent, whereas most manufacturers score between 40-60 per cent. The challenge is capturing the data you need to make improvements. Newer devices have IoT capabilities that allow them to connect to other devices and receive/transmit data. This allows you to collect data automatically for real-time visibility. A constant stream of real-time data allows you to gauge equipment performance against nominal functioning so you can catch problems early.

With your information all in one place, you can track downtime and trend data to monitor improvement – and leverage maintenance management tools to transform your KPI insights into operational efficiencies.

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FEATURE

DECARBONIZING CANADA’S

FOOD SUPPLY CHAIN Goals to reduce carbon footprint from operations are influencing a shift in supply chain strategy among Canada’s food and beverage industries

By Sean Tarry

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he global supply chain has certainly come under a considerable amount of scrutiny over the course of the past two or three years following a raft of port closures and delays, rising costs and fees, and a general lack of reliability and predictability. It’s forcing most companies operating in just about every industry and sector around the world to assess the state of their current supply chains and make the necessary tweaks in order to reduce costs and find greater efficiencies. However, according to the Food Professor, Dr. Sylvain Charlebois, although these tweaks are being made, a growing desire among those operating within the food and beverage industries to improve their environmental footprint is increasingly driving many of their supply chain strategies.

“The Canadian food supply chain in Canada, generally speaking, is performing much better than it was this time last year with far less significant delays,” he asserts. “And, as improvements are made, many within the industry are starting to place quite a bit of focus on optimizing and decarbonizing everything about their operations. Both aspects are being valued by most companies as equally important to the other. Optimizing, or building efficiencies, is very much

about planning the use of automation and artificial intelligence. In terms of managing the procurement of product and ingredients, the just-in-time and just-in-case models are frequently being improved and enhanced. And, many are also starting to leverage near-shoring more, all in an effort to decarbonize their supply chain, redefining the operations of companies all over the world.”

Middle mile opportunities

Charlebois goes on to explain that given regulatory legislation and associated penalties that exist in different regions and jurisdictions across the country, businesses are putting a concerted effort toward minimizing and, where possible, altogether eliminating the impact that their operations have on the environment. And, of course, their transportation and logistics needs represent a massive portion of their carbon footprint, making it something of low-hanging environmental sustainability fruit. However, explains the Food Professor, there are a number of significant challenges that are currently preventing greater progress and reduction of emissions.

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with food, and the ways they acquire it, has changed dramatically over the past few years, and will continue to change and evolve moving forward

“When you look at the domestic Canadian market, the middle mile is the piece of the supply chain that can be tightened up and improved most dramatically,” he suggests.

“People have been saying for a very long time that the most expensive mile is the last mile. And that may be true. But the middle mile, which is a critical one, is where the greatest improvements can be made from an environmental point-of-view as well as the perspective of reducing costs.

Food businesses will increase their competitive advantage significantly by investing in the activity that takes place between the warehouse and retail store, electrifying it, and making warehouses leaner from an environmental perspective. Because when you’re operating in a country as vast as Canada where there really isn’t any population density, you’ve got to make sure that the middle mile is managed as thoughtfully and strategically as possible.”

The promise of technology

Depending on the type of food or beverage company, and the nature and structure of their supply chains, explains Charlebois, there are a range of practices and initiatives that

Moving forward

Not only can data be harnessed internally to find the efficiencies that businesses are looking for, Charlebois says that it can, and should, be shared with trusted partners within their supply chains, explaining that a combination of retailer, manufacturer and distributor data can help all parties involved improve their footprints and operational performance. However, he adds that looking ahead over the course of the next 12 to 18 months or so, the biggest challenge for any business operating within the Canadian food or beverage industries will be in finding ways to use the data that they have at their disposal to better service the needs of Canadians across the country.

“The data that businesses have access to now is more precise, and therefore more powerful, than it was three years ago. It’s going to be interesting to see how companies within the Canadian food ecosystem leverage it to improve the way they serve people in urban centres as opposed to those in suburban and rural communities. The relationship that Canadians have with food, and the ways they acquire it, has changed dramatically over the past few years, and will continue to change and evolve moving forward. Those that understand this and can figure out how to most efficiently service these different types of areas, while maintaining reductions in their carbon footprints, will separate themselves from their competitors.”

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The relationship that Canadians have

can be developed and instituted in order to make some of these environmental and financial gains. However, he suggests that the one tool that can and should be leverage by all when looking to create a leaner middle mile for their supply chains, is that of technology.

“Technology, data most specifically, is incredibly important to businesses today when it comes to managing their supply chains,” he says. “And it continues to increase in relevance. If you can utilize artificial intelligence to better forecast and predict consumers’ behaviour and food choices based on an innumerable amount of variables, you can better tool stores, warehouses and overall operations for greater efficiency. It’s becoming imperative for businesses to leverage these tools and this type of technology in order to remain in-the-know with respect to what the consumer is doing and, more importantly, what they’re going to do next. Those that are able to take advantage of the tools that exist today to get ahead of their customers will also get ahead of their competition.”

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FOOD WARE

Chilling out Expand your self-serve offering, selection of condiments, and array of other chilled foods with the Nemco Cold Condiment Chiller.

The industry’s most compact, NSF unit, the Chiller features thermoelectric technology that effectively holds at required temperatures, without the drawbacks of conventional compressor units.

The design of the chiller ensures that the unit is compact enough to adapt to virtually any counter space. www.nemcofoodequip.com

It’s in the bag

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The Wyma Vertical Bin and Bag Filler is the perfect choice for the gentle handling of produce when filling bins or bags. Once bins or bags are full, produce feed stops until a replacement empty bin or bag is detected. On the dual-head model, the feed conveyor will reverse and fill the second bin or bag, allowing for continuous filling. www.wymasolutions.com

Palace of the brine The Inject-O-Mat 16 Brine Injector is constructed with a stainless-steel brine tank, centrifugal brine pump, variable speed motor drive, variable speed needle head that operates up to 50 strokes per minute, and an easy to read and operate control panel. Ideal for use with fish, seafood, bacon, ham, beef, and poultry applications. www.mpbs.com

Mixing it up Agitating the situation The Alfa Laval ALB bottom-mounted agitator is suitable for atmospheric and pressurized tanks and comes in a range of sizes. The modular design and choice of size ensures an agitator fit-for-purpose so you won’t have to invest more than needed and can look forward to optimal power consumption. Meets requirements for use in food, dairy and beverage applications. www.alfalaval.com

Designed for use with different size beakers and vessels up to around three gallons, the Ross High Sheer Mixer features interchangeable stators that provide unlimited flexibility to adopt to a variety of product formulations. In addition, this versatile tool is offered with a range of interchangeable attachments including sawtooth dispersers, propeller blades, micro and inline rotor/stators. www.mixers.com

Who We Are Founded in 1951, the Canadian Institute of Food Science and Technology (CIFST) is the national association for food science professionals.

Its membership is comprised of hundreds of individuals in industry, government and academia who are committed to advancing food science and technology.

The purpose of CIFST is to advocate and promote the quality, safety and wholesomeness of the food supply, to provide a professional development hub, to contribute to food policy and to support food science professionals at all stages of their careers.

About Food Science Food Science is a multi-disciplinary field of research and education focused on understanding the physical, chemical and biological properties of foods. The field spans discovery-type research & development to the applied sciences, and includes aspects of food chemistry, food microbiology & safety, processing & engineering, enzymology, nanotechnology, sensory science and the nutrition sciences.

Advances and drivers in the area of Food Science are also highly interconnected with changes in consumer trends, marketing, authenticity & traceability, food policy and regulatory affairs.

Member Benefits The Canadian Institute of Food Science and Technology (CIFST) represents a network of food science professionals from within the food and beverage sector across Canada with active Sections in British Columbia, Manitoba, Ontario and Quebec.

The association for food science professionals

Some of the benefits of becoming a member of CIFST are as follows:

More Info

Discounted member rates for all of our national and local events FREE registration for our Knowledge Bites webinars and special access to the post-event webinar recordings FREE digital quarterly issues and newsletters of Canadian Food Business Magazine to your inbox.

Members also receive discounted ad rates.

FREE weekly e-newsletter Directions, highlighting industry news from the sector Food for Thought, CIFST’s exclusive, members-only e-newsletter highlighting the Institute’s activities; FREE job listings and resume postings on our job board Access to our membership directory Volunteer opportunities on local and national committees $200 off the Certified Food Scientist application fee (the same discount that IFT members receive)

1-844-755-6679 cifst@cifst.ca 3228 South Service Road, Suite 109, Burlington, ON www.cifst.ca

FOOD WARE

Now we’re cooking The Spooner Industries Tunnel Oven provides a design suitable for a wide range of uses. Custom designed to meet specific process requirements using direct or indirect heating. Featuring high energy efficiency, the Tunnel Oven is a high-performance piece of equipment that ensures even air distribution, and, ease of access for cleaning and maintenance results in low maintenance requirements. www.directindustry.com

Approval of seal In knead of mixing

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IKA high performance HKD and HKS horizontal kneading machines are twin-bowl kneading machines with horizontally arranged kneading blades, able to process the production of low viscosity adhesives to extremely high viscosity mixtures. The distinctive feature of these kneading machines lies in their kneading elements, which enable them to be adapted to a broad spectrum of applications. www.ikaprocess.com

Sifting through The Prater Rotary Sifter, or Rota-Sieve®, is designed for sieving operations in which bulk raw materials, blends, and finished products need scalping or sifting to remove foreign materials or particles such as plastics, strings, or insects. The simple design and lightweight parts of the Rota-Sieve make standard inspections an easy and straightforward process. www.praterindustries.com

The Ishida TSC-RVS In-line Seal Checker accurately detects leaks, ensuring gentle bag handling, and user-friendly operation that delivers superior quality control on high-speed packaging lines up to 150 bags per minute. The Seal Checker ensures that only the highest quality packs reach your retailers with state-of-theart high-precision testing of air leaks and thickness variations in sealed packages. www.heatandcontrol.com

Into the mix The Alfa Laval Hybrid Powder Mixer is a dual-stage inline powder induction and dispersion system that quickly and efficiently disperses and mixes powders into a liquid stream. Versatile, cost-effective and easy to use, this inline high-shear mixer produces homogeneous products at high dry matter concentrations and high yields. www.alfalaval.ca

MOMENT IN TIME

Canadian Institute of Food Science and Technology

WELCOMES DR. YVONNE YUAN AS ITS 2023/2024 PRESIDENT

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r. Yvonne Yuan, Associate Professor from the School of Nutrition at Toronto Metropolitan University in Toronto, Ontario, has been appointed as the President of the Canadian Institute of Food Science and Technology (CIFST), with her term officially commencing on July 20, 2023.

Dr. Yuan’s teaching and research at TMU are focused on food chemistry related to -functional foods and chronic disease risk factors and health. Her research program is focused on the antioxidant and biological activities of plant foods, specifically edible marine macroalgae (seaweeds) from Western and Atlantic Canada.

She was also part of the TMU team working with the National Institute of Nutrition in Vietnam to scale up smallscale food processing plants to promote food security for women subsistence farmers and children in rural Vietnam.

Dr. Yuan has been a part of the CIFST Board of Directors since 2019 and is a past chair of the Nutrition Interest Division for the CIFST. As well, she has served as the newsletter contributor for the School of Nutrition for the Canadian Nutrition Society. She also served as the faculty advisor for the TMU Student Branch of the Canadian Association of Foodservice Professionals.

Dr. Yuan has received several awards in past years recognizing her professional service, research contributions and teaching. These include: • Champion of Education & Training, Educator Award, the Canadian Association of Foodservice Professionals, 2008.

• Institute Award, the Canadian Institute of Food Science and Technology, 2009.

• Faculty Service Award, the Faculty of Community Services, TMU, 2010-2011.

• Faculty Scholarly, Research and Creative (SRC) Achievement Award, Faculty of Community Services, TMU, 2011-2012.

• Dean’s Teaching Award, Faculty of Community Services, TMU, 2012-2013.

• Sue Williams Excellence in Teaching Award, Honorable Mention, Faculty of Community Services, TMU, 20192020 and 2020-2021.

A member of CIFST since 1989, Dr. Yuan is excited about the upcoming year as the 67th president of the professional institute, with representation from 8 provinces across Canada. Having been a student member herself at UBC's Department of Food Science, she feels honoured to now lead the organization.

Dr. Yuan acknowledges the significant contributions of past leaders and volunteers, including Louis Ayotte and Rob Kowal, in navigating CIFST through the challenges posed by the COVID-19 pandemic. She recognizes the pivotal role played by volunteers at both the Section and National levels, as well as the support of Canadian Food Summit volunteers, colleges, and universities.

Dr. Yuan expresses gratitude and appreciation for the dedication of student members, particularly those involved in competitions and committees. She is confident that these students represent the future of the food industry in Canada and the institute itself.

Looking ahead, Dr. Yuan anticipates an exciting year as CIFST awaits the outcome of the AAFC Food Cluster application, which would support innovation and sustainability in the food industry. The new strategic plan is focused on professional development programming, revenue building, and pursuing partnerships with media and other professional bodies that share common goals.

Acknowledging the growth and success of CIFST, Dr. Yuan recognizes the support and guidance provided by Essentient Association Management and its staff. She looks forward to continuing to work with the company in the coming year.

Lastly, the CIFST President encourages all members to find a sense of community, representation, and support within the Institute. She invites members to get involved and share ideas for events or activities, emphasizing that this is how her own journey began.

For more information about the Canadian Institute of Food Science and Technology, contact: Heidi Loney, Executive Director – 437-351-4334 or heidi@cifst.ca

C A N A D I A N F O O D B U S I N E S S.C O M

Courtesy of Canadian Institute of Food Science and Technology

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