SASKATOON – A new food development centre is being built in Saskatoon. The $16-million Saskatchewan Food Industry Development Centre will support expansion in Saskatchewan’s agri-processing sector.
The head of the Food Centre, Dan Prefontaine, says the agriculture sector will see long term benefits from the facility.
“The Food Centre’s new agri-food innovation centre will support innovation and technology through enhanced expertise, training and commercialization resources to assist our industry in accessing markets with new products and services,” said Prefontaine.
Saskatchewan Agriculture Minister Lyle Stewart agrees.
“The Food Centre is key to growing our value-added sector and adding strength to our diversified economy,” said Stewart. “This expansion will allow for more development and processing here at home.”
Once complete, it will support new product development, specialized laboratory services and extrusion technology, along with other services.
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The Food Centre was established in October 1997. Since then, over 600 products have been developed. An estimated 50 per cent of those have made it to market including fruit infused honey, flavoured camelina oils, beef jerky and bison Saskatoon berry jerky.
The federal and provincial governments are providing $9-million under the Growing Foward 2 initiative. Another $4.3-million is coming from Western Economic Diversification Canada with the remainder coming from industry investment and from the Food Centre’s capital replacement fund.
A location for the 30,000 square foot facility has not yet been determined. Construction is expected to start this spring with a completion date of 2017.
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