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COUNTRY LIFE IN BC • DECEMBER 2019 Food and beverage innovation centre launched


Province continues support of food hub concept by RONDA PAYNE


VANCOUVER – UBC will be home to BC’s first food and beverage innovation centre. The latest addition to the


BC Food Hub Network, backed by $2.6 million in provincial funding, was announced at UBC’s Vancouver campus on October 25 by BC agriculture minister Lana Popham. Popham says an innovation


centre supporting the food and beverage processing industry has been a goal of hers since her appointment as agriculture minister in 2017. “Anything that we can do to encourage this is going to be great,” she says, noting that a key focus will be supporting agrifood entrepreneurs. “We want to be the wind at their back as a province and creating partnerships with UBC [will help us] do that.” Delivered over three years,


the provincial funding will create an endowment fund for the new centre as well as a professorship in food and beverage innovation held by Anubhav Singh, previously an assistant professor in the Food Science Group within UBC’s Faculty of Land and Food Systems.


IT TAKES A VILLAGE: From left to right, UBC Faculty of Land and Food Systems dean Rickey Yada, BC Blueberry Council research director Eric Gerbrandt, professor Anubhav Singh, BC Minister of Agriculture Lana Popham and UBC president Santa Ono announce the new food and beverage innovation centre at UBC, October 25. RONDA PAYNE PHOTO


Singh’s research focuses on


novel food processing technologies. Most recently, he developed packaging that extends the shelf life of fresh blueberries. His work has attracted $4.8 million of funding for food processing infrastructure at UBC. “We are currently collaborating with nine companies,” he says, including


local food processors Daiya Foods Inc. and Enwave Corp. “We are learning what it will take to support the industry on the world stage.” The innovation centre will


strengthen the research and development side of BC’s food and beverage industry by transforming what to date has been a series of one-off activities through the UBC


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Food Process Engineering Lab, which Singh oversees, into formal, long-term research partnerships with growers and processors. Projects will help improve


processing technology, create new products, develop talent for the industry and share information with processors across the food hub network. “I am confident that


[Singh’s] research will strengthen existing ties with industry and establish new partnerships,” says Santa Ono, president and vice-chancellor of UBC. “It illustrates the tremendous knowledge exchange between UBC [and the wider community].” A tour of Singh’s lab


following the announcement gave students a chance to show some of the research currently taking place, including the development of novel dehydration technologies that maintain food quality and improve control of foodborne pathogens and illness. The innovation centre will


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be a key part of the province’s food hub network. Currently, only the demonstration site at Commissary Connect in Vancouver is operational, but Quesnel, Surrey and Port Alberni have been awarded funding to create additional food hubs and studies are underway on other locations throughout the province. “I made a commitment to


create more opportunities for the industry,” Popham says. “We will be improving nutrition, processing, health and packaging.”


She described the new


innovation centre as a system that will provide timely information to the food and beverage sector. An announcement about the system to enable communication between the various food hubs, the innovation centre and other stakeholders is expected before Christmas.


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