Speaker: Dr. Amy Proulx Session: Incubating our Food and Farming Capacity

1. Canadian Food and Wine Institute Research Centre at Niagara
College
Dr. Amy Proulx – Program Coordinator
aproulx@niagaracollege.ca

2. How we work with artisans and
entrepreneurs
• National Science and Engineering Research
Council – College and Community Innovation
Program (NSERC-CCI)
• Funds for job creation, technical readiness,
and economic competitiveness in food and
beverage sector
• Typically 1:1 cost sharing, with matching inkind contributions typical for smaller
companies

4. Typical Clients
• Small and medium sized enterprises (<50
employees), including roughly half of clients
with less than 5 employees
• Must submit a simple business plan for project
vetting and metrics
• Work through collaborative strategic planning
process for defining R&D outcomes

10. Students
Industry
Partner
Specialist
Faculty

11. Training and Services
• Empowerment and education centric model
• In-kind contribution can be accomplished by
working hands-on with our team, using
College resources to accomplish goals
• Access to unique facilities, licensed
brewery, licensed winery, food analysis
labs, microbiology, municipally inspected
kitchens
• 2015 – HACCP compliant processing pilot lab

12. Typical services
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Nutrition labelling
Regulatory affairs
Food safety management (eg HACCP programs)
Process lethality validation
Process or formula optimization
Golden palate services
Sensory analysis and consumer testing
Proof of concept manufacturing
Ingredient sourcing resources
Co-packing resource development

14. What defines success for us?
• Entrepreneurs being empowered, and
becoming more independent in their technical
skills
• Entrepreneurs capable of successfully
launching products, ideally creating jobs
• Students interacting at a high level with
industry clients, building network in industry
• Students obtaining work-ready skills and jobs

15. Pitfalls…
• More flexible than traditional university
academic settings, still subject to traditional
academic bureaucracy
• Driven by grants
• HR – once we get a great student trained, they
leave us!

17. Continuing relationships
• We welcome repeat applications
• Link clients to additional service suppliers