Generation1.ca invites participants, partners, and sponsors to join Tastes of Tomorrow: A Festival of Global Identities on Friday, August 7, 2026, powered by multicultural vision, global futures thinking and innovation literacy.
Building on our annual showcase powered by data insights, storytelling, global cultures, and multicultural immigrant identities, this year’s summer’s festival looks ahead using future-focused data, demographic shifts, and innovation trends to imagine what belonging and eating could look like over the next decade.
Thank you to Securian Canada, Vividata, World of Opinions, and Fuse Insights for joining us among our earliest returning sponsors.
Explore the sponsorship deck below and choose the tier that best aligns with your impact goals at this one-of-a-kind summer festival and showcase. To discuss these opportunities or others, contact arundati@generation1.ca.
A snapshot of tiers below with more details for each tier as you scroll over the page.
In a Canada that is projected to be 29–34% immigrant by 2041, and where more than one in four food-and-beverage workers are immigrants and over half of food businesses with paid staff are immigrant-owned, Tastes of Tomorrow treats immigrant talent and taste as core economic infrastructure, not a side theme. At a time when festivals already generate over $1B in GDP and around 30,000 full-time equivalent jobs nationally, centering immigrant-owned food, stories, and identities shows what future-ready prosperity really looks like.
In the United States to the south, immigrants are equally foundational to how the food and restaurant economy actually works: Over one in five US restaurant and foodservice workers were born outside the country, forming the backbone of daily operations; close to 40% of all US restaurant owners are immigrants, making immigrant entrepreneurship a major driver of new concepts, neighbourhood revitalization, and job creation; US food spending reached nearly $3 trillion in 2023, with food-away-from-home (restaurants, markets, festivals) growing by 12% and accounting for nearly 60% of all food spending—showing how Americans increasingly experience culture through taste. Major food events like Smorgasburg (NYC, LA, Miami) drew 2 million visitors in 2023 and supported roughly 100 small vendors, many immigrant-led, functioning as low-barrier testbeds where global cuisines become mainstream.
Festivals are not just celebrations. They are sampling frames, cultural laboratories, and economic powerhouses.
Across North America, food festivals reveal how people gather, taste, spend, belong, and imagine the future together. They surface emerging cuisines, immigrant entrepreneurship, neighbourhood economies, cultural identities, and the next signals in consumer behaviour.
Tastes of Tomorrow builds on this power.
Rooted in Generation1.ca’s decade of work in cultural intelligence and immigrant inclusion, this future-focused festival brings together global immigrants, industry leaders, creatives, researchers, policymakers, food influencers, and culinary innovators to ask:
What does belonging taste like in a world of many flavours?
For sponsors and partners, the festival is both high-visibility activation and living lab — a pla ce to explore sustainability, hyper-regional cuisines, inclusive hiring, AI-powered experiences, new product ideas, and the multicultural audiences shaping the next decade of food, work, and culture..
Rooted in Generation1.ca’s over a decade of work as a community hub and seismic node for cultural intelligence and immigrant inclusion as we mark our 11th year, Tastes of Tomorrow 2026 intensifies the storytelling, insight, and community energy our partners know so well—now expressed through food, flavours, and shared cultural experiences that point to the futures we are building together.
Interested in participating, speaking or taking advantage of opportunities at this highly anticipated summer showcase? Email Arundati@generation1.ca.
All sponsor tiers will benefit from:
- High-impact visibility across digital, media, and on-site festival materials
- Co-branding and custom features across programming, exhibits, and culinary activations
- Networking with ~100+ business leaders, retailers, consumers, CPG companies, policymakers
- Opportunities for on-site activations, branded experiences, and curated cultural integrations
- Post-event insights, photos, stories, media coverage that extend well beyond the festival day
- Participation and visibility across our Spring and Fall 2026 Career Fairs and Case Competitions
- These amounts stated do not include merchant fees which is usually an additional $20, when transacting through Stripe.
Sponsorship Tiers are Named Below with Custom Unique Benefits based on tier of support
- Pathfinder – $500 – Gain entry-level visibility across festival materials and be recognized as a supporter of multicultural belonging and community storytelling. SOLD
- Inclusion Sponsor – $2,000 – Above + Enjoy elevated branding plus invitations and engagement opportunities with diverse attendees, leaders, and creatives (and inclusion in our event handbook). SOLD
- Transformation Catalyst – $4,000 – Above + Benefit from stronger co-branding, priority activation options, and inclusion in select programming, speaking and storytelling features.
- Legacy Futures – $6,500 – Above + Receive premium visibility, deeper integration into festival content, and enhanced access to business, policy, and cultural leaders.
- Global Horizons Sponsor – $10,000 – Above + Step into a strategic leadership role with elevated festival-wide visibility, expanded activation opportunities, curated programming features, and deeper access to multicultural creators, innovators, and civic leaders.
- Cultural Vanguard (Premier Tier) – $12,000 – Above + Gain top-tier recognition with spotlighted features, major activation opportunities, preferred speaking or segment slots, and maximum brand presence across the festival.
- Festival Founding Sponsor – $15,000 – Above + Enjoy unparalleled brand leadership with headline visibility, premium media integration, major on-site activations, and priority access to all festival programming, storytelling, and engagement opportunities.
With past support from sponsoring partners such as Remitly, Vividata, Securian Canada, Bank of Canada, ESOMAR, Humber Polytechnic, Algonquin College, TLN Media, and others, Generation1.ca continues to create and deliver high-impact, high-engagement, data-informed experiences and stories that champion immigrant excellence and the organizations advancing diverse talent, consumer, and citizen pipelines in a post-digital and multicultural world. Join us for this—and help pave what tomorrow tastes like — sweet, savoury or spicy!
What has past success looked like?
Feedback from last year’s event is hyperlinked including member testimonials!
