Food packaging and processing company Tetra Pak® has announced the opening of its New Food Technology Development Centre in Karlshamn, Sweden.
The centre will help producers of biomass and precision fermentation-derived food products accelerate their time to market and reduce investment risk through pilot plant trials. Companies will receive tailored support from experts, allowing them to develop their technical processes and take their products from prototype to commercial-scale production.
The pilot plant is open to customers of all sizes, from start-ups and scale-ups to established food and beverage companies. It will support producers formulating for a direct end-use, such as meat and fish alternatives, along with those using fermentation to create functional ingredients.
An official inauguration for the plant was held on June 13, and the ribbon was cut by Charles Brand, Executive Vice President for Processing Solutions & Equipment at Tetra Pak. Attendees toured the facility, tasted products already in development, and learned about the centre’s capabilities.
Flexible, future-ready setups
The centre is staffed by skilled biotech and food technologists, lab technicians, and line solution experts, who can help companies design, run, and analyse tailored trials to reduce costs and increase potential profits. Its modular setup allows customers to configure customised production lines designed for efficient, optimally sized, and scalable food production.
Companies can benefit from two programmes designed to act as a testing framework. The process evaluation programme helps those who are ready to move from lab to demo-scale production, or are seeking more efficient methods for large-scale production. The productivity validation programme supports companies with established production processes in validating and improving their process performance.
Producers can test both upstream and downstream processes to develop flexible, future-ready setups. For example, they can compare different technologies for harvest, finding the best balance of price, product performance, and running costs.
“A step into the unknown”
The Technology Development Centre will also allow producers to collaborate with other Tetra Pak product development facilities in Lund. This could enable them to achieve their desired food properties and functionalities, trial product formulations, and develop a brand or product identity to create an effective go-to-market strategy.
Tetra Pak previously partnered with mycoprotein producer Mycorena in 2022 to build a production facility for fungi fermentation. The company also announced a collaboration with French biotechnology firm Standing Ovation earlier this year to optimize the industrial production of alternative caseins via precision fermentation.
“At a time when others in the industry are scaling back, we are moving forward, and the Tetra Pak® New Food Technology Development Centre represents our most significant commitment to fermentation-derived foods yet,” said Charles Brand. “We believe in the need to develop New Food sources to feed a growing population, but we understand that scaling New Food products is a step into the unknown. That’s exactly where our strengths lie.”
