Officials from the North Carolina Department of Agriculture, North Carolina State University, North Carolina Research Campus, the Golden Leaf Foundation, and the City of Kannapolis celebrated the start of construction for the N.C. Food Innovation Lab yesterday.
The facility will be housed on the first floor of the Core Lab Building on the North Carolina Research Campus. The North Carolina Food Innovation Lab will focus on helping entrepreneurs, farmers, and established manufacturers with the processing and manufacturing of new food products.
“This facility has been a long time coming,” said N.C. Agriculture Commissioner Steve Troxler. “This lab will be very important for agriculture in N.C. We need to be able to bring crops from the fields, to the market as improved and new food products and ingredients, that people can buy.”
Researchers on the campus will work with farmers and companies to pair research with making crops more economically viable and healthy for consumers. The location will be the only food innovation lab in the U.S. that is cGMP-certified (current good manufacturing process) and regulated by the FDA.
The lab is expected to open in July 2019.
Officials break “concrete” in celebration of the start of construction for the N.C. Food Innovation Lab.
Bill Aimutis, PhD, Director, NC Food Innovation Lab
Richard Linton, PhD, Dean of NC State College of Agriculture and Life Sciences
Steve Troxler, Commissioner of Agriculture, NCDA&CS
Mark Spitzer, Vice President of N.C. Operations, Castle & Cooke, N.C. Research Campus
Dan Gerlach, President, Golden LEAF Foundation