NZ food innovation hub reveals building expansion

FoodSouth, an innovation-support hub in New Zealand, has revealed a 140 m² expansion for its centre in Lincoln University. FoodSouth Chair Alan Malcolmson officially opened the building at an on-site ribbon-cutting ceremony on 17 August.

From its premises, FoodSouth gives food and beverage companies product scale-up support. Since it was founded seven years ago, it has worked with a variety of clients on the development of new products, including Cookie Time’s tea cookies for Japan, Harraway’s Oat Bites, Leaft Foods’ plant protein, Otis Oat Milk and Westland’s UHT cream for China.

The upgraded space includes a new low-care room which will enable the processing of a wider range of raw materials into high-value ingredients.

FoodSouth CEO John Morgan said: “The new space also includes an additional high-care, food-safe processing room, bringing our total number of rooms available for client scale-up and product development to five.

“The larger space will enable our team to easily move FoodSouth’s extensive range of processing equipment to customise each room for client production needs.”

FoodSouth is the South Island hub for the New Zealand Food Innovation Network (NZFIN), a government-funded network of facilities that work together to give growth and developmental support to food and beverage businesses in Aotearoa.

NZFIN provides advice, expertise, equipment and connections for food and beverage businesses to help them innovate, commercialise, scale-up and succeed domestically and internationally.

Lincoln University Vice-Chancellor Professor Grant Edwards said that hosting the FoodSouth facility on the Lincoln University campus is important for the university.

“Since much of our research in the food and beverage sector is directed towards innovation, it is hugely beneficial to have FoodSouth’s expertise, knowledge and leading-edge tools on-site to connect our students and researchers with industry.

“Our partnership and co-location with FoodSouth has facilitated many industry-led student projects and collaborations over the years, and we are committed to building on this valuable relationship.”