Twenty years ago most large food processing companies had in house pilot plant capability. The majority of these operations have been shut down as they were not required on a frequent enough basis to justify the cost of carrying the facility. Closure of these in house facilities did not remove the need for their capability and that has resulted in a variety of fee for service operations starting up. These facilities are operated by universities, different levels of government, and private corporations with a wide variety of mandates and capabilities.

The Bio Processing Centre is located in Innovation Place, a renowned research park located adjacent to the University of Saskatchewan in Canada. The facility is owned and operated by a government owned corporation with a mandate to attract and support industry in the province. Approximately forty percent of the facilities capacity is used to support the needs of companies located within the province with the remainder of the capacity being used for extra provincial clients.

Most of the work carried out at the facility is for clients in the agri-food, nutraceutical or personal care industry. The Bio Processing Centre has worked with clients ranging from small startups to large multinational corporations. Processing is carried out by trained service oriented operations staff who bring a professional approach and a great deal of knowledge and experience to the client's process. In house engineering staff supervise all operations in the facility and ensure that client's needs are understood and met. Processing is carried out utilizing customer-developed and supplied technology held in strict confidence.

The facility has a variety of wet process equipment that can be reconfigured to combine different unit operations as required by a process. Additional equipment to compliment the capabilities of the plant is routinely sourced from equipment suppliers. The facility is capable of processing in aqueous alcohol at a scale that has been found to be unique in North America. The unique capability has resulted in geographic location not proving to be a significant barrier to carrying business with clients from across North America.

The facility has attained a site license through Health Canada's Natural Health Products Directorate. The Directorate was created to ensure all natural health products for sale in Canada are manufactured in compliance with Good Manufacturing Practices with the goal of ensuring both safety and stated efficacy of the product.

The presentation will focus on the capabilities of the facility and the approach taken to carrying out its business.