The food and beverage industry has gained a technological infrastructure to design, develop and analyze its innovative products. The Food Innovation Center and the Turkish Food Innovation Platform (TÜGİP), which are open to all companies and initiatives operating in the sector, have been launched. The facility, which was unveiled by the Minister of Industry and Technology Mustafa Varank and the Head of the EU Delegation to Turkey, Ambassador Nikolaus Meyer-Landrut, attracts the attention with its state-of-the-art technology.
TÜBİTAK MAM Food Innovation Center, which will also serve as an incubation center for entrepreneurs in the food and beverage sector within the scope of TÜBİTAK MARTEK, will improve the culture of doing business with 200 cutting-edge high technology machinery and equipment, and contribute to the development of innovative products and processes. In this way, the R&D costs of enterprises will decrease. The facility will include pilot production lines for minimally processed foods, fermented fruit products and juice, nut products, herbal extraction and tea, ready meals, seafood, starter culture and dairy products.
TÜGİP GOES INTO OPERATION
Within the scope of Turkey's largest food R&D and innovation project INNOFOOD, the Food Innovation Center and the Turkish Food Innovation Platform (TÜGİP) were established under the leadership of TÜBİTAK. The center and platform went into operation within the scope of the Competitive Sectors Program with the co-financing of the European Union and the Republic of Turkey and the support of the Ministry of Industry and Technology.
Minister Varank, who unveiled the Center at the Marmara Research Center (MAM) in TÜBİTAK's Gebze campus, said, “For the first time, we have succeeded in providing our country with an infrastructure with this scope and extensive opportunities for the food industry. With this facility and platform, we desire and wish that the R&D and co-development culture in the food and beverage industry will increase and value-added products will be developed.”
IT WILL BE A PRODUCTION BASE
Varank emphasized that it is now a necessity to increase sustainability and efficiency in food production and said, "We will further develop this potential by using the opportunities offered by the new world order, and we will make our country a production base of the world in food production, along with all production areas." he said.
With TÜGİP, it is aimed to increase the regional and international competitiveness of the food and beverage industry based on innovation. The platform will meet the information and infrastructure needs of the food industry to carry out result-oriented R&D and innovation studies together.
Established with the approach of "Developing Together and Succeeding Together", TÜGİP includes all stakeholders in Turkey's food and beverage sector. As a communication network and clustering platform, TÜGİP offers holistic solutions for companies to implement their products and ideas, reduce innovation and R&D costs, and take advantage of the power of cooperation.
COMPREHENSIVE R&D STUDIES
The Food Innovation Center was established in Gebze in an indoor area of 5 thousand 800 square meters under the structure of the TÜBİTAK Marmara Research Center (MAM) Life Sciences Food Research Vice Presidency. The center has 9 pilot-scale processing lines and an advanced food innovation laboratory for the R&D and innovation studies needed by the food industry.
In the center, there are processing lines for minimally processed foods, fermented fruit products and fruit juice, nut products, herbal extraction and tea, ready meals, seafood, starter culture and dairy products equipped with 200 machines and equipment. The center also has 84 modern laboratory devices for advanced food analysis. The center was also designed as an incubation center for entrepreneurs in the food industry.
The Center, which food industrialists can benefit from without investing in machinery and human resources, allows new product development and product improvement activities without stopping the processing lines. With the center, businesses will be able to scale with affordable costs and high-quality.