It used to be Food Processing. Every week, someone would call or email saying something like “Everybody loves our fruit salsa.” How can we get it into Walmart?
Everyone wants to get into the food and beverage industry these days. Just watch Shark Tank. Despite the fact that about half of all startups fail within their fifth year, according to U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics statistics.
There is always the next Chobani, next Blue Buffalo, or Impossible Foods. The industry of helping the next star to get started has grown with many municipalities, for-profit businesses and large food companies sponsoring incubators and accelerators of all kinds. This article will focus on university incubators.
Joell Eifert is the director of Virginia Polytechnic Institute and State University’s Food Innovations Program.
She continues, “I believe that the Food Innovations Program is, like many other food incubators, one part of the village necessary to assist an entrepreneur.” The entrepreneurial spirit and the constant “why not” question are what fuel the process. Collaboration with many groups that provide assistance with food processing, marketing and business planning helps to propel the process forward.
Three years ago, the Food Marketing Institute stated that a number of land-grant universities (Rutgers University and University of Nebraska, Virginia Tech, Cornell University, and Virginia Tech) have established food innovation centers with incubator programs in order to encourage local job creation within the food industry. These universities bring together food science, technology, and innovation.
An incubator, similar to a bioreactor or fermenter, can initiate the reactions and actions needed for the production of a food product. It can be used to protect and nurture the fledgling idea and its creator until they are ready for flight.
You’ll also get training and a space to work that may include commercial kitchen equipment or a pilot plant. There will also be other entrepreneurs around you who share your infectious spirit.
There are a few fees that university incubators may charge. These include a registration fee and a fee per service. This could include a Nutrition Facts label analysis, rental costs for the pilot plant, or a student fee for attending a class. According to Terry Howell Jr. (executive director of The Food Processing Center), the University of Nebraska-Lincoln charges between $2,000 and $10,000. We spoke to none of them who were interested in funding these startups. They did not even want equity positions. This is usually the realm of food company-owned accelerator programs.
It is not easy to start a food business. You should research the market you are entering as a small-business owner before you invest your time, money, and effort,” says one of the essays found on the Virginia Tech website.
“The food that you produce can have an immediate effect on the safety and health of your customers.” Virginia Tech states that improperly processed food products can cause serious illness or even death. A business selling food products must comply with complex regulations at the federal, state, and local levels. Food processing, packaging, and safe food handling practices are all important topics.
Many of this requires physical assets. Many incubators share several commonalities:
- Commercial kitchens, shared or private
- A pilot plant
- Meeting and working space
- Services for educators, such as classes and events
- Support and business planning
- Process authority
- Referrals to external services such as packaging, distribution, financing, contract manufacturing and packaging
All of this is possible with the help of the professors in the college’s department of food science.
Rutgers: Making Impossible Foods possible
Rutgers University of New Jersey is home to one of the most successful success stories. Pat Brown, founder of Impossible Foods was working on a recipe to make a better plant-based hamburger in April 2016. To make his idea a reality, he visited Rutgers’ Food Innovation Center.
Brown believed that one of the key ingredients to Brown’s success was the use legume hemoglobin, or “heme,” as it makes Brown’s hamburgers taste and “bleed” like real hamburgers. Impossible Foods created a plant-based, heme by fermenting genetically engineered yeast. It was discovered by Impossible Foods, but Rutgers assisted them in scaling it up and bringing the burger to market.
Impossible Foods was founded in Oakland, Calif. after two years of incubating the idea, and small batches were produced in a refrigerated room measuring 2,000 sq.ft. at the Food Innovation Center’s Bridgeton location. The rest is history.
Rutgers University’s Food Innovation Center calls itself an accelerator and incubator. It assists “established entrepreneurs in their early stages” as well as existing food companies, from conception to commercialization. Their mission is to provide “business, marketing and food safety expertise in FDA- and USDA-certified facilities that help companies build and grow their businesses.”
Three Food Innovation Centers exist: in Bridgeton and Piscataway, as well as New Brunswick. These centers offer similar R&D, product design and commercialization capabilities. The New Brunswick location offers analytical chemistry services and mass spectrometry.
Virginia Tech Food Innovations Program
The Virginia Tech Food Innovations Program is located within the Department. Eifert says that the program was created specifically to help food entrepreneurs. “But, we also have a responsibility to help existing businesses solve their problems with innovative solutions.
Virginia Tech has two pilot plants. One is a general food processing pilot plant measuring 7,100 sq. ft. and the other is a food safety pilot plant measuring 2,200 sq. ft. Both are certified to handle biosafety level 2 (BSL2) pathogens. They provide unique product development and process support for education, research, and industry. The facility also includes a sensory evaluation lab, high-pressure processing plants and an aquaculture plant.
“Our facilities cannot be used for manufacturing. They are not subject to inspection.” Eifert says that they refer them to co-packers, shared-use kitchens and other facilities for processing. We can however provide trial runs to entrepreneurs to help them scale and choose the right equipment/packaging.
This program offers assistance in starting a food business. It includes food analysis and nutrition label design, as well as education and information on process scaling, food safety, and food regulation.
Eifert adds, “One of our main services is that we provide the food safety specialist and process authority.” “We offer analytical services, but we also provide education and information to help them understand the implications of test results. We also provide liaison assistance between the food business/entrepreneur and the regulatory agencies.”
The Sensory Evaluation Laboratory is “the basis for making decisions about ingredients, packaging, flavor, and marketing.” Our capabilities include discrimination, consumer, and descriptive research using qualitative and quantitative methods. There are 10 individual booths for panelists, a focus group/panel preparation room, isolated sample preparation lab, and observational cameras that can record synchronously, facial expression analysis software, and software to observe behavior and focus groups.
Eifert says, “I believe what our program most contributes is education.” “The educational component can level out the playing field, increasing understanding of food science, food processors, and food safety. This will allow for more viable entrepreneurs to bring safe and healthy food products onto the market.
This program provides food testing services that help ensure food safety and regulatory compliance when new products enter the market. It can also provide nutrition facts panels for product labels.
She continues, “I cannot [conceive] of a claim to fame food product, but I do know of a few businesses that have worked with us for many years.” “I think the Food Innovations Program probably helped more than 60% of vendors at the Virginia Food and Beverage Expo. It is very satisfying to see the products being sold.”
Nebraska: National Food Entrepreneur Program
Key steps in the commercialization process are food science and manufacturing. However, the key to creating innovative products is an entrepreneur. This concept is the core of the University of Nebraska–Lincoln program.
UNL’s Institute of Agriculture and Natural Resources houses The Food Processing Center. The center, which was established in 1983, is a multi-disciplinary resource offering both technical and business development services. The National Food Entrepreneur Program is also available under this roof.
The first phase of the National Food Entrepreneur Program is the Recipe to Reality Seminar. This seminar provides an overview of all the issues involved in starting a food manufacturing company.
“Recipe to Reality gives entrepreneurs the opportunity to gain information that would take them months to find, and knowledge about the basics of starting their food business. This seminar helps participants understand the challenges involved in starting a food company and allows them make informed decisions about whether it is right for them.
People who are interested in marketing family recipes, people with product ideas or concepts, producers looking to add value to agricultural products, and chefs or restaurateurs exploring the possibility of manufacturing a house speciality.
The topics include market research and development, product and process design, regulatory issues and agencies, packaging, labeling, pricing, cost analysis, product introductions and sales, promotional material, food safety, sanitation, and business structure.
Next one will be Aug. 14 with a July 31 registration deadline.
UNL’s food incubation efforts include the entrepreneur program. A spokesperson said that UNL has extensive pilot plants, including a dairy plant, extrusion, and HPP among others, product development labs, sensory labs, analytical chemistry laboratories, microbiology and food properties testing labs, and nutritional labeling services.
We work with all levels of entrepreneurs, from new startups to large established food businesses. She continues, “When a project requires specialized knowledge, we interact with University of Nebraska’s Food Science and Technology faculty and other university departments.”
The services include applied research and engineering, food properties testing, labeling & regulatory compliance as well as lab services, pilot plants, product design, sensory lab, and the National Food Entrepreneur Program.
Cornell: Uniquely Upstate New York
Cornell’s College of Agriculture and Life Sciences includes the Cornell Food Venture Center. However, it is split between the Cornell AgriTech campus in Geneva and the Ithaca, N.Y. main campus. It is also linked to the New York State Center of Excellence for Food and Agriculture.
Vinification, the conversion of grape juice to wine, is a speciality in upstate New York. Craft brewing is also a specialty. High pressure processing (HPP) is another. Programs are also available for dairy because the region has been a hub for yogurt production.
Ithaca has the Food Product Innovation Lab (Food Product Innovation Lab) and sensory Lab; Geneva has a pilot farm, wine and beer laboratories and the HPP validation centre.
Cornell handles food science and manufacturing, but the Center of Excellence in Business Development seamlessly assists with business development issues.
“People come to us having great ideas for food products or recipes that they want to put on the shelves, but they don’t know what to do,” Catharine Young, executive Director of the state Center of Excellence for Food and Agriculture, says. Cornell collaborated with us to create a full-service facility that can help them get everything they need, from product development, food safety validation, testing, scheduling processing, and business development.
A menu of services includes lab analysis for pH, water activity and Brix measurement; process authority approval; resources for nutrition analysis, co-packers, packaging suppliers and shelf-life studies; regulatory compliance–registration and licensing for state and federal agencies; and the “Better process control school,” a necessary certification for acidified and low-acid food manufacturers.
It also keeps New York State and the region happy. Young claims that the Center of Excellence and Cornell Food Venture Center have combined their efforts to create 300 jobs and an economic impact of $70 millions over the past 18 month.
