Innovation in the Food Processing Industry Survey

Detailed information for 2003

The objective of this survey was to collect new statistical information on the nature and extent of product and process innovation in the Canadian food processing industry; characteristics of organizational change and data on restructuring practices in the food supply chain that support innovation processes and facilitate the delivery of innovative products and services.

Data release - August 15, 2005

• Questionnaire(s) and reporting guide(s)
• Description
• Data sources and methodology
• Data accuracy

Description

The objective of this survey was to collect new statistical information on the nature and extent of innovation in the food processing industry; characteristics of organizational change and data on restructuring practices in the food supply chain that support innovation processes and facilitate the delivery of innovative products and services. For the purpose of this survey innovation was defined as being the first firm to introduce and/or develop a brand new or significantly improved product or process in North America.

The Food Processing Industry is primarily involved in manufacturing and producing food for human and animal consumption, excluding beverage and tobacco manufacturing.

Results from this survey may be used by businesses and trade associations to study industry performance, government departments and agencies, including Agriculture and Agri-Food Canada, to assist in policy formation and by the academic community for research purposes.

Subjects

• Food, beverage and tobacco
• Innovation
• Manufacturing
• Science and technology

Data sources and methodology

Target population

The target population for the Innovation in the Food Processing Industry Survey was all establishments in the North American Industrial Classification System (NAICS) code 311 'Food Manufacturing' with revenues greater than $1 million per year. NAICS 311 includes: NAICS 3111 Animal and Food Manufacturing, 3112 Grain and Oilseed Milling, 3113 Sugar and Confectionary Product Manufacturing, 3115 Dairy Product Manufacturing, 311611 Animal (except poultry) Slaughtering and (311614) Rendering and Meat Processing from Carcasses, 311615 Poultry Processing, 3117 Seafood Product Preparation and Packaging, 3118 Bakeries and Tortilla Manufacturing and 3119 Other Food Manufacturing. There were approximately 2490 establishments in the target population.

• Additional documentation

Instrument design

The Innovation in the Food Processing Industry Survey questionnaire was initially developed by the Micro Economic Studies and Analysis Division and Agriculture and Agri-Food Canada. The Small Business and Special Surveys Division reviewed and revised the questionnaire with input from Agriculture and Agri-Food Canada based on feedback from questionnaire testing with Statistics Canada's Questionnaire Design Resource Centre.

Sampling

This survey is a census with a cross-sectional design.

This was a census of all in-scope companies.

The survey frame was built using Statistics Canada's Business Register (BR).

All companies with the exception of those that participated in questionnaire testing were surveyed. This maximized our ability to provide revenue, establishment, regional and NAICS breakouts and to ensure a high level of data quality in the event of non-response.

Prior to the start of the collection period, all companies in the survey were contacted in order to verify and update the information on the frame as well as to identify a 'knowledgeable' contact person to complete the survey. This process is known as 'pre-contact'. The questionnaire was subsequently mailed to the attention of the person identified during pre-contact. For those companies for which we were unable to locate or determine a contact person, the questionnaire was sent to the attention of the company without a contact. Following pre-contact, 2267 establishments were estimated to be in business and in-scope to be surveyed (including all companies which we were unable to locate or contact).

The final sample size was 2267 units.

Data sources

Data collection for this reference period: 2004-11-01 to 2005-01-15

Responding to this survey is voluntary.

Data are collected directly from survey respondents.

Data was collected using a paper mail-out, mail-back questionnaire. Pre-contact was made prior to the mail-out and telephone follow-up was conducted after November 24th, 2004 for six weeks.

View the Questionnaire(s) and reporting guide(s) .

Error detection

Questionnaires were initially manually edited and outliers detected as they were received during collection. A series of edit rules were developed and invalid or inconsistent entries were corrected using these rules. Telephone follow-up was conducted for missing entries that could not be manually edited.

Imputation

The verification process determined that certain respondents failed to answer certain questions or that their answers were not consistent. These are partial non responses and in this case, the missing data are imputed.

The data were imputed using a hot deck technique whereby a donor respondent is selected randomly from a group of respondents with complete responses and similar characteristics. The characteristics used in this survey to establish similarity, as agreed upon with the AAC clients, were the industry code (NAICS), total income as reported in the BR, and the "country of origin of the majority owners" collected during the survey. If possible, all three characteristics were used to find a donor, but in certain imputation scenarios only two characteristics, and sometimes only one, had to be used.

Below is the order of imputation levels used depending on the availability of donors in the groups formed by their characteristics.

Table 1: Imputation level

1) Same NAICS code, same revenue category (divided in 5 groups), same country of control (divided in 3 groups);
2) Same NAICS code, same revenue category (divided in 5 groups), same country of control (divided in 2 groups);
3) Same NAICS code, same revenue category (divided in 3 groups), same country of control (divided 2 groups);
4) Same NAICS code, same revenue category (divided in 3 groups);
5) Same NAICS code

The imputation rate for each individual variable varies from 1% to 25%.

Estimation

The estimation was done using the Statistics Canada Generalized Estimation System (GES), relying on the non response adjustment factors for the weighting. Estimates were calculated for each variable individually. The GES also produces the coefficient of variation (CV) and the standard error of an estimate, which can be used to assess quality. By considering the CVs for the estimate of a total, or the standard error for the estimate of a percentage, and the imputation rate for each variable, a level of quality is assigned to the estimate.

Normally, in a census, each respondent represents only himself and therefore has a survey weight of 1. In this case, however, the responses had to be multiplied by an adjustment factor to compensate for the total non response. By total non response we mean a respondent who refused to respond or who could not be contacted. To ensure that a non respondent establishment was represented by another establishment with similar characteristics, the database was divided into 33 non response categories using NAICS variables (NAICS codes) and revenue groups. A study of the key variables determined that the two variables used were the ones that would make it possible to form the most homogeneous groups. The maximum weight for a non response category is 3.67 and the minimum weight is 1.8, with the average weight being 2.33.

Quality evaluation

The Innovation in the Food Processing Industry was the first survey of its kind collecting data on product and process innovation. Currently there is no published data comparable to the data collected by this survey.

Disclosure control

"Statistics Canada is prohibited by law from releasing any data which would divulge information obtained under the Statistics Act that relates to any identifiable person, business or organization without the prior knowledge or the consent in writing of that person, business or organization. Various confidentiality rules are applied to all data that are released or published to prevent the publication or disclosure of any information deemed confidential. If necessary, data are suppressed to prevent direct or residual disclosure of identifiable data."

Aggregated tabular data was released for this survey. Cells for which a domain had less than 6 respondents were suppressed.

Data accuracy

The data indicators used for the Innovation in the Food Processing Industry Survey were 'Standard Error' and 'Coefficient of Variation'. The standard error is a commonly used statistical measure indicating the sampling error of an estimate. The standard error and the coefficient of variation (standard error expressed as a percentage of the estimate) were used in the data tables to provide an indication of the level of data quality of the estimate.

Alphabetic symbols representing the size and range of the standard error and coefficient of variation were used in the statistical tables to provide an indication of the extent of the sampling error of the estimates.

The response rate for this survey was 42%.

• Additional documentation