Extension Food Science and Technology
Extension Food Science and Technology
Extension Food Science & Technology (EFST) was busy Fall of 2022! If you are not familiar with our Extension team, they offer a wide variety of services to food industry and food businesses such as Process Approvals for food business licensing, Nutritional Facts Labels, Food Safety Workshops, and On-site Technical Assistance.
UGA EFST offered 8 workshops that reached 82 individuals in and around the state of Georgia.
Around 38 businesses used our services including Process Approvals (PA) and Nutrition Fact Panels (NFP). Overall, EFST issued around 66 NFPs and 48 PAs in the Fall 2022 semester. We worked with an array of products from barbecue sauces to granola and vegan ice cream! The graph (below) shows the number of PAs and NFPs we completed monthly in 2022 for a total of over 300.
Check out what clients had to say about us!
“Dr. Dunn and her Extension staff are efficient, polite, and prompt. She is helpful during workshops, and you can tell that she is passionate about produce safety by her presentations and discussion facilitation.”
“I learnt a lot through the process.”
-Feedback from EFST clients and workshop attendees
- Charlie Evans, Extension Program Coordinator
Image taken from Food Science Extension's Better Process Control School course in Tifton in July. Dr. Casulli had a hands-on portion at the Tift County Canning Facility after the BPCS course.
Food Product Innovation & Commercialization Center
Dr. James Gratzek pouring fruit into Urschel Lab Comitrol® milling system, a machine that grinds fruits and vegetables.
UGA’s Food Product Innovation & Commercialization Center is focused on enhancing capabilities and extending outreach to more clients. We are preparing the facility to be licensed as a food production site with both state and federal authorities to promote the sale of various food products into wholesale and retail channels.
FoodPIC will become a ‘Community Kitchen’ and allow businesses to lease our facility and equipment to advance their needs; we expect to have this capability by mid Spring. We continue to bring additional processing and packaging capabilities to the Center which includes the recent addition of an Urschel Lab Comitrol® milling system, a Sanko stick pack powder filling machine, and a Vemag dough former and cutter. We recently completed training and protocol development for our Microthermics® system to support beverage and sauce development including non-dairy milks, juices, purees and sauces. Current client activities include product and process development for snack bars, drink mixes, hot sauces, non-dairy milks, among others. Lastly, we are focused on our Quality System development which includes implementation of cGMP’s, improved building and equipment sanitation, and overall food manufacturing documentation in line with our goal of becoming a food production site.
- Dr. James Gratzek, Director of FoodPIC