POS Pilot Plant Corp. of Saskatoon is expanding its bioprocessing
capabilities to better serve smaller clients.
Western Economic Diversification Canada is contributing $562,500 to the
$625,000 project. The money will pay for new equipment that will allow
small firms to bridge the gap between the laboratory and full-scale
commercial production.
“Today’s investment demonstrates the government of Canada’s commitment
to strengthening our research and development capacity in order to
bring new knowledge to market more quickly,” said federal public works
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POS president Robert Morgan said the new funding will support the food
research plant’s extraction and refining equipment and will allow POS
to move into technologies that require less solvent use when processing
biological materials.
“This fits well with the move to reduce emissions and the interest in
eliminating solvents in processed high-value products aimed at the
health food market,” Morgan said.
The money is paying for a mini-press, an extractor, a decanter
centrifuge and a microfluidizer. Clients will use the new equipment to
test materials in quantities as small as one pail to determine how they
will perform under full-scale industrial production.
It will be used to test food and feed ingredients, nutraceuticals,
cosmetics, pharmaceuticals and materials such as biodiesel and
bioplastics.
Last fiscal year the POS Pilot Plant Corp. provided services to clients
on more than 190 projects and generated record sales of $5.3 million.
