Brave new food

by Ron Wall

Going to a farmer’s market on a weekend morning is a ritual many Albertans look forward to. As you stroll by the booths, checking out the fresh produce and baked goods, you can be sure you’ll be invited to sample a tasty, new product that someone has put together in their kitchen with loving care. But have you ever wondered what it would take to take that product from a farmer’s market to the shelf of a local supermarket?

Well, new food products don’t just happen – it takes careful planning, research and testing to get them from the recipe stage in someone’s kitchen to a production line at a processing plant. And in Alberta, new food entrepreneurs have no lack of resources to help them get there.

The first phone call many people make is to the Alberta Agriculture, Food and Rural Development Food Processing Development Centre in Leduc. Open since 1984 as part of Alberta Agriculture’s Processing Division, the Centre offers a wide range of services to assist Alberta food companies to develop new food products and new technologies for food processing.

Ron Pettitt, head of the Centre since 1994, says that “on average, approximately 100 new food products are introduced annually to the marketplace from clients who work with our Centre. As well, we probably introduce one or two technologies annually.” The Centre is a modern, fully equipped 20,000 square foot pilot plant and product development laboratory facility staffed with experienced food scientists, engineers and technologists. Clients can use the facility and expertise on a fee for service basis.

Out of the kitchen…

Pettitt says the process of getting a new food product to market involves extensive testing and piloting before it ever reaches the store shelf or restaurant kitchen.

“A client approaches us with a recipe for a product that he or she might have put together or had been given by a relative. Friends like the product so he’s experienced some success already. He applies to the Centre for technical service and, if accepted, our project review would assess his product, marketing plan and skills. If that is all in place, we assign the client to work with one of our scientists to commercialize the recipe.”

Once a recipe has been adapted to commerciallevel volumes and standards, the processor can have the product produced and packaged commercially, ready to go on the grocery store shelves and be test marketed.

…Into the store

According to Pettitt, if the client’s test marketing is successful, the next step is getting the product manufactured. While the options range from setting up his own plant or working out an arrangement with an existing manufacturer, what often happens is the client will run the business out of the Centre.

“Depending on the company, time frames can range from a few months to a couple of years. It really depends on how fast the client can get financing in place to move into his own facility,” says Pettitt.

Testing, testing

To test products with consumers, the Centre offers a sensory evaluation service. “We have a consumer product testing centre set up in a mall in Edmonton,” says Pettitt. “We run products through the testing centre and get evaluations back from the public for the client.”

According to Pettitt, successful products from companies such as Canyon Creek Soups, Saxby Foods, Select Meats, Bee Maid Honey and Fabco Foods, makers of Bassili’s Best Lasagna, can be found in restaurants and grocery stores thanks to the work done at the Centre.

Along with start-up companies, Pettitt points out that the Centre also works with existing small- to medium-sized companies which already have a product but want to introduce a new line. “For example, a company that currently markets lasagna may want to offer a vegetarian or organic line as well.” Multinational companies also use the Centre to develop new product lines.

Safety first

An important aspect of developing any food product is safety. As clients develop their product, says Pettitt, a food safety program is provided. “We make sure that when they leave here, the product has a set of protocols in place so that it is a safe product.” The Centre employs a quality assurance supervisor who works specifically with clients on ensuring food safety.

Pettitt adds: “The Centre is a federally registered food processing plant for meat, dairy and processed foods. This is important for processors who want to market their products outside of Alberta where federal status is required to ship out of the province or country.”

A helping hand

But what if you already have a food product that you’ve been marketing for a while but need some help with your business? A good resource to look into is the Calgary Innovation Centre (CIC). The CIC assists innovators, businesses and entrepreneurs in developing their ideas or products and bringing them to market.

CIC director Lawrence Bremner says the key to success in bringing a food product to market is the people behind the product. “Many of the people we see are so committed to their product, they’ve given up their day jobs to start their own businesses, but they find themselves in trouble because they don’t understand the marketplace and they don’t know how to go out and access financing. We can help them do that.”

Unless the person behind the product has the passion to stay with it, he says, chances of failure are high. “Entrepreneurs aren’t a dime a dozen. They have to have a lot of passion for what they do. We spend a lot of time at the outset of our evaluation determining whether a person has enough passion because there will be barriers to overcome. But I have a firm belief that every idea that comes through my door has the potential to be a business.”

The CIC also brings a variety of people together to get a business off the ground. For example, Bremner recently worked with Edelweiss, a cheese manufacturing company in Edmonton, that makes soft cheese. “The company needed to demonstrate they could make the cheese. We were able to work with the Food Processing Centre in Leduc and got all the right people around them to be able to do the prototyping of the product. I also helped them develop their equity and debt capital, as well.”

Another example of a product Bremner is working on and developing with an Alberta entrepreneur is a line of organically grown vegetarian foods to be marketed in Alberta grocery stores.

“Rob Sinclair, a young man from Calgary, was travelling around the United States learning about vegetarian cooking when he met a Franciscan monk who had developed a line of vegetarian foods. Rob now has an excellent opportunity to manufacture these foods under the name “Friendly Foods” right here in Alberta with local organically grown produce. The distribution rights are excellent but we need to develop the packaging so that it can be sold in grocery stores.”

Bremner says it’s difficult to know what is going to be the next big thing. But, he maintains, “you have to plant a lot of seeds and see what comes up.”

Smart food

Another organization planting seeds, literally and figuratively, for innovative products is located at Olds College. The Olds College Centre for Innovation (OCCI) is focusing on nutraceuticals, an industry with projected global growth of $500 billion by 2010. OCCI is also involved in helping new businesses in agriculture get started.

Nutraceuticals are elements derived from foods that are generally sold in medicinal forms not commonly associated with food. Benefits range from improved physiological health to protection against chronic disease. St. John’s Wort pills, for example, are known to alleviate mild depression, ginko bilbo gelcaps are said to improve memory retention and echinacea taken in pill form is credited with enhancing the immune system.

According to Rick Tofani, COO of OCCI, the foundation is being laid to ensure producers are in a strong position to reap the benefits from this burgeoning industry. “Plans are underway to hire a specialist in the areas of processing new crops from which nutraceuticals can be manufactured,” he says. “A pilot scale processing facility to process these products is in the planning stages as well.”

To get the process off the ground, OCCI is working with the Alberta New Crops Network to help organize producers who will be growing both new and traditional crops for new uses.

“We are working with private companies in Alberta on how to help build this industry from the market demand up,” says Tofani. One of the hurdles to overcome is to establish some form of standardization on the active ingredients in the plants.

Using echinacea as an example, he points out that right now anyone can grow it and sell it but there is no regulation as to what active ingredients are in it to make it an effective nutraceutical and more saleable.

“We currently don’t have the government legislation that recognizes what the active ingredients in products like echinacea are. But that is on its way to being passed in the near future,” says Tofani.

According to him, Alberta is ideally placed for capitalizing on the growing nutraceutical industry – both for production and processing. “Alberta’s unique and vast growing conditions with moisture and temperature variations are ideal for growing a variety of these plants. Also, Alberta’s greenhouse growing industry is poised for growth and could impact this area.”

One unique opportunity Tofani is working on is with Prairie Natural Processors Ltd. which is growing black currants. Because of the fruit’s strong flavour, black currants are used in a wide variety of juices, alcoholic beverages and cough syrup. As well, they are an excellent source of vitamin C and contain an essential oil for the vitamin industry. Added to that, buds from the plants are used to make aromatics.

“The ultimate goal is to attract a major functional food beverage plant to Alberta, but to do that, you need a critical mass of sustainable production,“ he says. “What we are doing is helping a committed group of central Alberta growers attain that goal in the next five years. We are working with them to see the vision, identify the market, help promote it and champion it on their behalf.”

Alberta-based Banner Pharmacaps in Olds is the kind of company that Tofani sees as a potential market for some of the new crops grown for nutraceuticals.

“Banner Pharmacaps produce 1.4 billion gelcaps each year. Their customers are some of the world’s largest pharmaceutical and vitamin companies,” he says. “If we can get a consortium of growers and processors working in this area, we have an encapsulator and an almost fully-integrated supply chain right here in Alberta.”

Right here in Alberta – that’s where it’s all happening. So, the next time you bite into a bison burger, enjoy a bowl of soup at your favourite lunch spot or boost your immune system with a cup of echinacea tea, chances are it came from close to home.