Teagasc helping food firms serve up success amid Brexit and Covid challenges

The newly expanded National Prepared Consumer Food Centre (NPCFC) at Teagasc’s Ashtown facility in Dublin is working with Irish food companies to develop new products, deal with the fallout from Brexit and work through the impact of Covid-19 restrictions.

The state-of-the-art innovation and research centre's capabilities range from food product development and innovation, nutritional analysis and quality, food safety, sensory analysis and research into advanced processing technology.

The prepared consumer foods sector is very broad, explains NPCFC manager Shay Hannon. "It is a category that encapsulates virtually any consumer-facing food that has had a value-adding process applied."

Funded by the Department of Agriculture, Food and the Marine, the centre has recently acquired additional equipment which will enable it to expand its range of services to support the food industry in Ireland.

“Innovation and new product development will be key to meeting growing consumer and customer requirements,” Hannon says. “Food companies can avail of services, including our dedicated product development kitchen, which houses a vast range of food processing equipment, ovens and analytical equipment. This space can be used to develop or tweak food products and carry out essential real-time analysis for particle size, viscosity, water activity and pH.”

Mini production lines

Food companies can also scale their products using the equipment based in the processing hall. “We can tailor our processing area to create mini production lines where companies can develop standard operating procedures to produce a consistent high-quality product time after time,” he says.

Among the key pieces of equipment available to the industry are a freeze drying unit and a Harter air drying system, that can be used to dry a variety of foods including dried fruits, vegetables, nuts and even jerky products.

“The Harter system is one of our most utilised pieces of equipment at present and we are working with several client companies across a variety of products to air dry their food products. Dried products can then be further processed to create powders and functional ingredients.”

Hannon describes the twin screw extruder as a flagship piece of equipment. "This is the only extruder in the country," he adds. "The demand for healthy and tasty alternatives to meat is growing and extrusion technology allows for the development of fibrated protein products, which are either used as ingredients for vegetarian or vegan dishes or ready-to-eat prepared meals.

“Extruded fibrous proteins are vegetable proteins that are low in fat, high in protein and fibre content, and rich in nutrients. They are directly extracted from plants such as soya, cereals, legumes or other plants.”

Clients also have access to the dedicated sensory science suite located on site. This area consists of a kitchen to prepare samples and 18 tasting booths which are all equipped with sensory computer software to access tasting panels. Lighting can be adjusted to control how products are analysed.

“We taste with all of our five senses and the sensory suite helps companies to understand the taste profile of their products under different circumstances.”

New extension

The new extension will provide additional space to support companies in what has been a very difficult time for the industry due to the combined impact of Brexit and the Covid-19 pandemic.

“Within the new extension we have a dedicated positive pressure room related to ultra heat treated and high temperature, short time continuous thermal processing. This will be a controlled space with its own air handling system and will aid in the development of juices, beverages, plant milk and milk replacements, shakes, yogurts, and puddings and sauces.

“There is also a new packaging suite which allows for a complete cycle of product development where equipment such as our automatic tray sealer can be used to seal a variety of food products such as chilled ready meals and processed meats.”

Companies can trial various tray and film types and use different gas mixtures to develop optimum modified atmosphere conditions for a safe shelf life. Space has also been provided for equipment to be adapted and arranged for specific client needs, including, cooking, mixing, homogenising and depositing, essentially creating mini production lines within the prepared consumer food facility.

The centre has been active in helping businesses seek new markets during the pandemic. “We have done a lot of work with the food service industry, helping them transfer into retail. One large catering company had fantastic products and we helped them launch into the retail channel.

“We helped them with packaging and achieving a longer shelf life. It was one or two days when they were supplying events or industry customers, but it needed to be a lot longer for retail.”

Demand for the centre’s facilities and services is on the rise. “R&D activity did drop during Covid but we have seen an increase over the last 12 to 14 weeks. We’ve never been as busy here thankfully.”