Waterloo, Canada, September 19, 2022 – Metagenom Bio Life Science (MBLS) is excited to announce that they are a participant in one of fifteen teams awarded the Spark Award from the Homegrown Innovation Challenge. The Challenge is funded and delivered by the Weston Family Foundation to address the challenges of growing berries year-round and provide an opportunity to develop solutions applicable to growing berries and a broad range of crops. The Challenge gathers the innovative minds of growers, farmers, scientists, engineers, researchers, and many more to form partnerships that tackle the threats of a vulnerable supply chain and disruptions in the face of climate change. These partnerships will create sustainable and resilient food production systems in Canada.
Metagenom Bio Life Science is a collaborator on the Challenge’s project led by Dr. Trevor Charles from the University of Waterloo (UW) (also the CEO of MBLS) with Co-Investigators from UW, McGill University, and École de technologie supérieure. Growers from Vertité, a hydroponic strawberry farm in Montreal, are also collaborators on the team. With expertise in microbiology, agriculture, engineering, imaging technology, and life-cycle analysis, the team proposes to develop a system for optimized strawberry production that uses automated technology and leverages the strawberry microbiome. The system would incorporate improved system geometry and ventilation to produce healthy, flavourful strawberries.
The team is choosing to focus on improving strawberry production in Canada to help fill the gap for homegrown strawberries out of season. According to Agriculture and Agri-Food Canada, Canada was the 4th largest importer of strawberries globally and strawberries were one of the country’s top three fruit imports by dollar value in 2020. In the same year, Canada imported ~134,000 metric tons of strawberries, approximately 82% more than was nationally produced.
For this Challenge, MBLS will work with its newly incorporated subsidiary, Healthy Hydroponics InnoTech, to evaluate the microbiomes of hydroponic systems and strawberries grown with the addition of beneficial microorganisms. This will provide insight into optimizing strawberry microbiomes for healthy and delicious fruits, year-round.
“We are thrilled that the Weston Family Foundation has put together this challenge to address food production sustainability in Canada which has become more apparent in changing climates, social-political turmoils, and global pandemics. We really look forward to working with other members of our team—they all have creative ideas and great mastery of their fields,” says Rebecca Co, Manager of Research and Innovation at MBLS and the Manager of Healthy Hydroponics.
The Spark Awards, each worth $50,000, are presented to fifteen teams in the first phase of the Challenge to help teams refine their concepts, develop teams, and prepare for the next phase of the Challenge, which includes implementing and scaling their concepts. Details on the funded projects can be found at https://homegrownchallenge.ca/spark-award-projects/.
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About Metagenom Bio Life Science
Metagenom Bio Life Science is a biotech company based in Waterloo, Ontario, that specializes in amplicon sequencing solutions and bioinformatic analysis of environmental microbiomes. The team of technical and microbial experts strives to deliver high-quality and actionable data to see academic and industry clients through to their solutions.
Contact Information
Trevor Charles
Metagenom Bio Life Science
trevor.charles@metagenom.com
Office: +1 844-973-4363