The Agri-Food Discovery Place (AFDP)
AFDP is located on the University of Alberta’s south campus in Edmonton, Alberta, Canada, on a section of land identified as the University of Alberta Research Farm.
Opened in June 2006 the pilot plant facility is part of the Agricultural Food & Nutritional Science Department (AFNS) and provides scale up fee for service through applied research for University Academics, Government of Alberta, Agriculture & Forestry and External Industry Clients. This unique facility is the very first in Canada to have a Meat Safety & Processing research unit and Solvent Extraction capabilities available under one roof yet functioning as completely separate wings of the business, including separate air handling systems.
The Agri-Food Discovery Place links our research in food safety, AgTech, and functional foods with industry collaborators, playing a part in helping make livestock, farming and agriculture more sustainable.
AFDP supports five research platform technologies which include:
- Meat Safety & Processing (level 2 containment)
- Carcass & Meat Science
- Natural Health Products & Functional Food
- Animal Nutrient & Ingredient Development (including petfood formulation and extrusion)
- Fermentation for optimization and scale up of level 1 microorganism
The University of Alberta Academics provide the science behind proof of concept product/ingredient development through basic research developed at campus. AFDP and Academics work together to optimize and scale up general concepts and assist companies in determining the feasibility of moving the project closer to commercialization. Getting Industry to the market is one of many mandates for Agri-Food Discovery Place. By linking Academic expertise and technology with industry partners the companies’ then move to affiliated facilities to produce large volume products/ingredients that can be packaged and marketed by others. AFDP operates under the provincial Alberta Health Services and no product or ingredient is sold for human consumption.
AFDP and the AFNS Food Science and Bio-resource Technology division can draw on numerous departments within the University of Alberta for assistance such as the Departments of Chemical & Materials Engineering, Biological Sciences, Civil engineering, School of Business, Biochemistry and others as required.
Applications
Agri-Food Discovery Place would like to have you as a client. For us at AFDP to better serve you please fill out the appropriate application form from the list below:
- Animal feed product and process development
- Carcass and Meat Science - Anti- and post- mortem factors that affect carcass yield/grade and meat quality
- Extrusion with the Wenger extrusion line
- Meat safety/processing research or research with biosafety risk group 2 microorganisms
- Fermentation or growth of cell cultures in 5L to 2000L scale
- Laboratory and/or storage space requirements
- Natural health product process and product development
- Solvent extraction, separation, concentration and dehydration
- Super/sub critcial fluid extration (CO2)
- None of the above (General Application)
Once the form is filled out and submitted it will be review and a staff member of AFDP will contact you to either get more information or to setup a start date.
If the application is an urgent matter, or if you are looking for a tour, please contact Ross Lowe.