One of Canada’s top venture capitalists believes investors in this country are missing opportunities in the health and food sectors.

Arlene Dickinson, founder and general partner at District Ventures Capital who’s best known as one of the dragons on CBC’s Dragon’s Den, has a stake in Balzac’s Coffee, Sap Sucker and One World Foods, among others and believes other investors should take note of the sector.

“Technology is fascinating and certainly it adds to our life in many ways (and) it also distracts from our life in many ways, but we all get up every day to eat,” she told BNN Bloomberg in a television interview on Thursday.

“We all need to have something nutritional in our bodies to be able to function and people don't focus on how important the sector really is in Canada and around the world, but particularly in Canada, we just don't invest enough in it.”

Since founding District Ventures Capital, Dickinson said her company has added $1.6 billion to Canada’s health and wellness sector.

“I think we need to focus the investment community more on the space,” she said. “It's not as sexy as AI for sure. It's not as crazy valued as AI either, but it is imperative to our future health.”

Dickinson hopes investment in the sector will help Canadian companies create products domestically, rather than produce the ingredients and ship them elsewhere for production.

“These are steady businesses that need to be fuelled in order to fuel us and people are not investing enough in the space,” she said.

For her, an attractive company uses readily available ingredients, a scrappy entrepreneur and a “good handle on their supply chain.”

“You're looking for a product that actually hits trends,” she said. “Is it something that's giving people a healthy snacking option that makes them feel better about themselves and actually is good for them?”

For more from Dickinson, watch the video at the top of this story.