The Manitoba Food Development Centre
The Manitoba Food Development Centre (FDC) is a fee-for-service research and development facility within Manitoba Agriculture. The FDC provides technical assistance to agri-food businesses, with a focus on innovation and commercialization of sustainable plant and animal protein products and ingredients to support the Manitoba Protein Advantage.
FDC offers a single-window approach to food product commercialization including technical, business development, marketing and pathfinding services to assist your food business in meeting its goals.
Through laboratory and pilot scale research, FDC supports the protein industry to innovate and commercialize products and processes by:
- extracting protein from various commodities (plant and animal sources)
- identifying innovative product applications for ingredients
- developing and scaling protein-rich food and beverage prototypes from plant (pulses, oilseeds or cereals) or animal sources (meat, poultry, egg or dairy) to address market trends and increase consumer acceptance
- formulating products to meet health claims and protein-related claims
- processing low-value co-products into higher-value ingredients and foods
- identifying high-value components and cost-effective processes for recovery from wastewater streams
- characterizing protein and co-product ingredients
- creating product specification and marketing sell sheets
- preparing product samples for test marketing
FDC has technical expertise and a 57,450-square-foot facility with capabilities for:
- wet protein extraction to create protein concentrates and isolates using centrifugation, isoelectric precipitation, membrane filtration and enzymes;
- dry protein fractionation using air classification or grinding and sifting to create protein-enriched fractions from oilseed press cakes or pulse and grain flours;
- pilot scale drum, spray or air drying of ingredients;
- UHT or HTST thermo-processing lab unit for prototype development or protein slurry pasteurization;
- supercritical fluid extraction to recover high-value components from co-products or defat raw materials prior to protein extraction;
- thermal processing to extract bio-active rich components from co-product streams;
- twin screw extrusion to modify ingredient properties and create food products;
- functionality testing of protein ingredients for foaming, gelling, water binding, oil binding, solubility and emulsification properties;
- on-site testing of ingredients and products to determine protein, fat and solids content, microbial load, particle size, sensory attributes and shelf life; and
- regulatory assistance to meet American and Canadian nutritional labelling requirements, assess protein claims (PER, PDCASS) and guide Health Canada Novel Food or Novel Ingredient submissions.
FDC offers some of these services in collaboration with other Manitoba research organizations.
Do you have a protein product you want to take to market? Click here to learn how the Manitoba Food Development Centre can help you.
Contact
Visit the Manitoba Food Development Centre website for more information, or email us at mbagrifood@gov.mb.ca if you would like this information in an alternate format.
