Agriculture and Agri-Food Canada – Wine Sector Support Program

ByMaurice

Description:

The Wine Sector Support Program (WSSP) provides short-term financial support to licensed Canadian wineries as they adapt to ongoing and emerging challenges that impact financial resilience and competitiveness of the wine industry.
The program will provide non-repayable grants to wine licensees in Canada based on their production of bulk wine fermented in Canada from domestic and/or imported primary agricultural products.

Comments on Funding:

Funding will take the form of non-repayable grants. The maximum amount payable to any eligible recipient under the program will not exceed $25,000,000 per fiscal year.
A per litre payment rate will be calculated for each fiscal year by determining the total litres of eligible wine produced in the relevant production year from information provided by eligible recipients in their applications, once the application intake period for the fiscal year has closed. The grant funding allocation for the fiscal year will then be divided by the total litres of eligible wine under the program. Individual grant payments to each eligible recipient will be calculated by multiplying their total litres of eligible wine by the payment rate.

Eligibility:

Applicants must:

  • be legal entities capable of entering into legally binding agreements;
  • be for-profit organization(including businesses and corporations, sole-proprietorships, partnerships and co-operatives);
  • hold a wine license issued by the Canada Revenue Agency under section 14 of the Excise Act, 2001, valid at the time of the application to the program and up to March 31 of the fiscal year in which a grant payment may be issued;
  • be a for-profit licensed winery that produces wine in Canada for commercial sale;
  • have produced wine(such as, grape wine, other fruit wines, sake and/or other primary agricultural product-based wines), fermented in Canada, that use domestic and/or imported primary agricultural products (for example, grapes, berries, other fruit, dandelions, rice and sap), in the 2021-2022 and/or 2022-2023 fiscal years;
  • have grown, produced or owned the primary agricultural products used to produce the wine;
  • generate a minimum of $50,000 in total sales of all wine they produced in Canada in the previous fiscal year to which they apply to the program.

Applications Steps:

Documentation Needed:

The applicant must submit:

  1. proof of his/her valid wine license issued by the Canada Revenue Agency, where the effective date and expiry date of the license are clearly visible;
  2. production records sufficient to trace the primary agricultural product to the resultant wine;
  3. records of transactions between he/she and the primary agricultural product source(s) and/or other wine licensees.

Other Things to Note:

The application intake period for the 2022-2023 fiscal year (April-March) is closed.

Program Contact:

Wine Sector Support Program

About the author

Maurice

Maurice (Moe) Muise learned the ins-and-outs of government while an employee of the Government of Canada in Ottawa for 10 years. His current focus is helping small businesses in Ontario to identify and maximize government grants to grow their business. Click here to learn more about Moe’s background and how he can help your business.

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