If your dog or cat eats ORIJEN or ACANA, their food was made just west of Edmonton. Now the science behind it will be done there too.
Champion Petfoods opened its Global Innovation and Discovery Centre at its NorthStar Kitchen in Acheson on June 24. The facility cost $32 million, was funded by parent company Mars, and sits on a 75-acre campus three kilometres west of Edmonton off Highway 16 in Parkland County. The ribbon-cutting happened the same day as the announcement.
The centre is a pilot facility a controlled environment where scientists, nutritionists, veterinarians, and product developers test new recipes and technologies before scaling them to full production. Small batches, rigorous food safety controls, market-specific development for the more than 80 countries where Champion sells its products.
"This facility empowers our Associates to push the boundaries of pet nutrition, developing nutrient-rich foods with the speed, safety and scientific rigour that pet lovers expect from us," said Stacey Osborn, President of Champion Petfoods.
What ORIJEN and ACANA actually are
Walk into any independent pet store in Edmonton and ORIJEN and ACANA sit noticeably higher on the price shelf. A bag of ORIJEN Regional Red runs around $140 CAD for 11.4 kilograms. Most mainstream brands sell comparable sizes for $40 to $60.
The difference is ingredients. Where most commercial pet food is built around rendered meals and grain-based protein, ORIJEN and ACANA use fresh and raw named proteins — cage-free chicken, wild-caught fish, grass-fed beef — sourced from regional suppliers near the Acheson facility. High protein, low carbohydrate, minimal processing. A significant and growing segment of pet owners pays the premium. The $32 million facility is Champion's investment in staying ahead of that market.
What the centre does that the production kitchen cannot
The NorthStar Kitchen is a full-scale production facility. The new Innovation and Discovery Centre works differently — it lets the R&D team capture and process ingredients in ways that are not practical at production scale.
One example: the facility freezes fish at the point of capture to extract essential oils, which then go into fresh kibble and freeze-dried recipes. That process needs to be developed and refined in a controlled pilot environment before it can be incorporated into full production runs.
Champion is also partnering with researchers at the University of Calgary and the University of Guelph, including funding nine PhD positions focused on pet nutrition science.
What Champion is and how it ended up here
Champion Petfoods was founded in Alberta more than 40 years ago. Mars acquired the company in 2019. Champion employs nearly 1,000 people and sells ORIJEN and ACANA in more than 80 markets worldwide, with strong growth in Asia and Europe.
The NorthStar Kitchen in Acheson 421,000 square feet on 75 acres is Champion's primary production facility. The new Innovation and Discovery Centre sits on the same campus.
What this means for Parkland County
Parkland County has been working to replace industrial tax revenue lost when coal-fired power plants were phased out including TransAlta's Sundance plant. Attracting and keeping large employers like Champion has been a direct response to that gap.
Champion's NorthStar Kitchen already employs hundreds of people in the county. The Innovation and Discovery Centre adds high-skill research and development jobs scientists, nutritionists, PhD researchers on top of the existing production workforce. Those are not interchangeable with plant jobs. They are the kind of positions that tend to stay in a community for decades once established.
Mars choosing to locate Champion's global R&D hub in Parkland County rather than closer to its US headquarters in Louisville, Colorado is a meaningful signal for a county that has been actively competing for exactly this kind of investment.
The $15 million coming next
Beyond the $32 million centre, Mars has committed an additional $15 million CAD for Champion's Canadian facilities over the next five years to enhance production, packaging, and sustainability. That puts total committed investment at $47 million for the Parkland County campus over the coming years.
Sources:
Champion Petfoods, press release, Global Innovation and Discovery Centre grand opening, June 24, 2026 (newswire.ca)
Champion Petfoods, statements from President Stacey Osborn and SVP Jeff Johnston, June 24, 2026
