Food 'incubators' help develop new products
By JANET FRANKSTON LORIN
The Associated Press
FRANKLIN TOWNSHIP (Hunterdon) -- Goat chops,
goat sausage and goat loins aren't appearing on most American menus
today, but Jim Lechner is working to change that. The
Hunterdon County goat farmer knows there's a demand for his meats in
the ethnic market, including Muslims seeking halal meat. He's hoping a
food "incubator" at Rutgers University will help him sell his product
to high-end restaurants and turn his goat meat into a gourmet product. Since
2001, the Food Innovation Center at Rutgers has helped develop and
refine ideas for new products grown and manufactured in New Jersey. These
incubators, so-named because they "hatch" ideas, exist across the
country to help food producers keep up with a changing American diet
and palate. The U.S. Department of
Agriculture has awarded $10 million in grants, including $1 million to
Rutgers, to provide technical and business development assistance to
agricultural producers for new food ventures or to add value to
existing ones. Similar to
incubators created for other sectors like technology, the centers offer
sophisticated guidance -- akin to research and development arms of
large companies -- to assist farmers and entrepreneurs with business
development plans, market research and focus groups, and in some cases
manufacturing. "There's a
tremendous thirst for new products in the marketplace and the
opportunities are ripe for new companies to be quick to market with
products that meet the needs," said H. Louis Cooperhouse, director of
the Rutgers center. Many
incubators are affiliated with universities -- at Oregon State, the
University of Idaho, Cornell University -- and offer different menus of
assistance. Other food venture centers and incubators, in Vermont and
Indiana, are nonprofits. They
represent steps beyond the traditional alliance with universities,
extension centers that historically assisted with pest management,
agriculture genetics and crop rotation. In
New Jersey, where the food industry is estimated at more than $8.1
billion annually, Rutgers' Food Innovation Center helps small farmers
and entrepreneurs develop new products such as organic gelato and
fresh-cut asparagus in microwaveable pouches. The
center has operated as part of Rutgers for years, and will get its
first dedicated building in 2008. The $7.4 million, 23,000-square-foot
building, in Bridgeton, will offer food processing equipment, technical
and business support services, office space and manufacturing and
storage space. Lechner, for example, will be able to use center's test kitchens to work on sausages or ready-made dishes. He
also has received two grants from the center, through the U.S.
Department of Agriculture, to create goat meat cuts and to work with
chefs to create a guide with recipes and tips for preparation and
presentation. "In the culinary
industry, chefs are always looking for something new and different,"
Lechner said, walking around his 165-acre farm in Franklin Township, an
hour west of Newark in Hunterdon County, over the din of bleating
goats. "I compare goat meat to veal. It's more tender and it has a
sweet flavor." Cooperhouse said the changing eating habits and multicultural desires of Americans are providing new markets for foods. "People
looking for more prepared foods, but they're looking for higher quality
prepared foods and they're looking to make connections with local
producers," said Brian Norder, project director for the Vermont Food
Venture Center. The Vermont
incubator helped David Barash, an alumnus of Ben and Jerry's ice cream,
with the startup of the Vermont Mystic Pie Co. He
needed a place to scale up his recipe and help to flash freeze the
pies. Apple and apple-blueberry frozen pies are now sold at Whole Foods
on the East Coast. "We went from
baking several pies a day at home to making several hundred a day and
it allowed us to really experiment with what worked," he said. "If it
hadn't been for the incubator space, I don't know what we would have
done." Incubators are taking different shapes in other places. The
Oregon State program also helps existing businesses add products. In
Geneva, N.Y., the Cornell Agriculture and Food Tech Park opened last
year, offering manufacturing space to startup food companies as a
complement to its Food Venture Center. The
Business and Technology Incubator at the University of Idaho, opened in
2004, offers kitchen space, test labs, and business and technical
advice. It also matches entrepreneurs looking for local ingredients
with growers, said director Jim Toomey. The center helped an apple farmer add apple barbecue sauce to his product line and a wheat farmer expand to pancake mix. As
the fourth largest dairy state, the Idaho center is also working with
business to create more artisanal cheeses to meet a growing demand.
Next, it plans to offer technical services for the wine industry,
Toomey said. "The intent is to retain food dollars in the local economy," he said. In
New Jersey, Blackwell's Organics, which sells 12 flavors of organic
sorbet and lactose-free gelato, has increased production from 50 to 300
cases monthly with marketing and organic certification help from
Rutgers. Founder Marcia Blackwell said startup businesses like her year-old-company need assistance navigating the changing food market. "People
are looking more for quality than to just fill their stomachs," she
said. "Fifteen years ago, people were just looking for a meal and now
they are savoring the foods they eat. They are more educated about
where their food comes from."
from the Courier News website www.c-n.com
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