Purdue launches institute to help farmers commercialize new products

WEST LAFAYETTE, Ind. — A newly formed institute at Purdue University is offering training and development support to agriculture producers with novel food and beverage product ideas.

The new Institute for Food Product Innovation and Commercialization is funded by a $1.5 million grant from the U.S. Department of Agriculture Rural Development.

“This grant is focused on farmers who want to add value to their product,” said Dharmendra Mishra, institute director and associate professor of food science.

Entrepreneurs face many steps and challenges in converting commodity crops into new products for retail sales.

“We want to remove those hurdles for farmer-entrepreneurs,” Mishra said.

A joint effort of Purdue’s departments of Food Science and Agricultural Economics, the institute is part of the USDA Agriculture Innovation Center Program.

“It’s bringing together the technical expertise on food manufacturing and food safety from food science and the marketing, entrepreneurship and business management strengths of ag econ,” said Kenneth Foster, the institute’s assistant director and professor of agricultural economics.

Dairy farmers might want to produce ice cream or high-protein beverages. Growers of tomatoes and jalapeños might want to market a salsa. Or, a beekeeper who sells honey may wish to develop a syrup, as well.

Whatever the value-added product, the new institute can help train rural entrepreneurs in developing a recipe, making their product, educating them about the safety factors they need to control and assessing their potential market.

“There’s only so much agricultural commodity you can produce,” said Foster, who runs a beekeeping and honey business as his grandfather and father did before him.

And that commodity likewise has value limits.

“We put it on a truck, barge, train or plane and we ship it somewhere else and people add value to it,” Foster said. “What can we do to support value-adding at the local level so more of that stays in the local community where the product is produced?”

A key element of the new program is the Food Entrepreneurship and Manufacturing Institute established in 2021 while Foster served as interim head of the food science department.

Like the new institute, FEMI is a collaboration of Purdue’s food science and agricultural economics departments.

When Purdue established FEMI, “the idea was to drive economic growth in Indiana and help entrepreneurs struggling with commercializing their food products,” Foster said.

Another idea was to reduce the region’s dependence on the national and global supply chain that caused so many problems during the COVID pandemic.

Purdue’s recent history in product development includes introducing Boiler Chips ice cream and Boilermaker Hot Sauce Black and Gold Editions.

The students and faculty members involved in these projects benefited from access to the food science department’s Skidmore Food Product Development Laboratory, as will the farmers who participate in the new USDA program at Purdue.

Also providing resources to the new institute is the food science department’s Pilot Plant. After entrepreneurs develop their recipe, they need a pilot test before they begin full-scale commercial production.

“That’s where our Pilot Plant is important,” Mishra said. “We can create or simulate a commercial process in our Pilot Plant to know how this is going to behave in a larger-scale manufacturing environment.”

Agricultural economists at the Purdue Institute for Family Business and the Center for Food Demand Analysis and Sustainability will lend further expertise to the endeavor.

They will help develop marketing and business plans, along with insights about consumer demand for food and related products.

The program has three phases. Phase 1 consists of six online training courses that introduce participants to the basics of food product design, food safety and business planning.

Once participants pass the online training, they can proceed to Phase 2 for a one-day, on-campus workshop on the food product life cycle. In Phase 3, program participants receive intensive on-campus, personalized feedback and assessments of their ideas.

Serving on the institute’s board of directors are representatives from Indiana Farm Bureau, Indiana Grown, Indiana State Department of Agriculture, Indiana Dairy Producers, Indiana Vegetable Growers Association, Indiana Nut and Fruit Growers Association, Indiana Corn Marketing Council and Indiana Soybean Alliance.

In addition to benefiting the economic well-being of the region, “we also want to create impact for the farmer participants and our students as well as the broader program of FEMI,” Mishra said. “At any given time, we have many undergraduate students and graduate students working on real-life projects.”