The number one food story of the year was the sudden panic-buying and unnecessary hauling of food that took place during the first wave of the pandemic.

Dr. Sylvain Charlebois is a food professor at Dalhousie University.

"We feel that that phenomena has had an impact on people's behavior, but also will have an impact on policy," he said. "You're seeing more provinces investing more on controlled environment agriculture. They're looking at greenhouses, vertical farms, hydroponics, aquaponics. There's discussions all over the country on how to produce food all year round."

Charlebois notes 2021 is the International Year of Fruits and Vegetables and adds it's fitting that more focus will be placed on producing produce all year round domestically.