On March 11, 1998, Biotech Canada held a workshop on Functional Foods and Nutraceutical Technologies in Vancouver, BC. Following this meeting Dr. David Kitts, Professor, Faculty of Land and Food Systems, University of British Columbia, was asked to invite industry stakeholders, and other interested parties in the FFNHP sector to a round table discussion on the formation of a national functional food and nutraceutical initiative as part of the Biotech Canada group.

Biotech Canada received feedback from FFNHP industry professionals that the industry was in a strong enough position to form and sustain its own association. Other provincial initiatives of this nature were being organized across Canada, and nothing yet existed in British Columbia. Consequently, a decision was made to explore the possibility of creating an organization in BC.

In July of 1998, several industry professionals were invited to attend a meeting at the National Research Council's Innovation Centre to discuss their interest in the development a British Columbia Functional Food and Nutraceutical Network (BCFN). In September 1998, there was a call to a greater number of industry specialists to attend a meeting at BCIT, with the intent of obtaining consensus on the formation of the BC Nutraceutical Network. Other objectives of this meeting included development of a mission statement and goals for the organization, and determination of topics of interest for a one day seminar to be held within the first quarter of 1999. On January 27, 1999, this seminar, undertaken solely by volunteers, was successfully held with an attendance of 150 people in Vancouver.

After having shown great promise in its first year, at the BCFN’s annual meeting in September 1999, there was discussion of making the BCFN a more formal organization with membership. As a result, the British Columbia Functional Food and Nutraceutical Network Society became formally incorporated on August 29, 2000. Furthermore, over the previous few years, there had been discussion on broadening the scope of the BCFN to extend beyond the province of BC to develop a more pan-western network and increase the benefits of Western Canadian interests on a whole. As a result of these discussions, it was decided that the BCFN would change its geographical scope to cover the four western provinces, from British Columbia to Manitoba, and subsequently its name was revised to the Western Canadian Functional Food & Natural Health Product Network (WCFN). The official name change from the BCFN to the WCFN occurred on May 31, 2006.

To date, the WCFN has hosted over 100 seminars and workshops and has further evolved by establishing the WCFN Excellence Awards, Canada’s only FFNHP industry recognition awards program. In November 2008, ten years after its conception, the WCFN successfully completed its 10th annual conference in Winnipeg, the first city to host Canada’s foremost FFNHP conference outside of Vancouver. Now, with membership that spans across Canada the WCFN has grown to over 100 corporate and 400 individual members and a database of over 1500 industry contacts. January 2009 marks another milestone for the WCFN with its first International Corporate member from India.