Small business owners and farmers’ market vendors who want to take the next step in food processing and business development will have the opportunity at a new food sciences training facility.
By next fall, Portage College’s St. Paul, Alta., campus will open its Food Processing/Food Sciences Training Facility to help establish a local food industry in northeast Alberta.
“It will allow producers to come into the micro setting without huge investment and test things out before they go the next big step,” said Nancy Broadbent, vice-president of student and college services at Portage College.
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If food businesses are successful at the Portage College facility, they can take the next step to Alberta Agriculture’s Food Processing Centre in Leduc, where the food commercialization can begin.
Broadbent hopes the new program will give food processors a boost to make their products market ready.
The college received just less than $1 million from the Rural Alberta Development Fund to launch the program.
They money will be used to develop programs, labs and curriculum for the new program housed in an old school.
About 10 classrooms will be renovated as business and food training incubation units.
The first program should be ready by September 2013 with other programs to follow.
New food processors can rent the renovated classroom incubation facilities to help produce their product in the facility.
Broadbent hopes the new programs will help increase visibility of the campus and increase enrolment.
