New recipe for food innovation research

Palmerston North is on its way to becoming a food research hub as it takes its share of a $21 million pie to improve the country's food-export industry.

Massey University's department of food, nutrition and human health is to receive new state-of-the-art equipment as part of the government's plan to create a network of food development facilities across the country that are open to all food businesses.

Economic Development Minister Gerry Brownlee said small and medium-sized companies needed access to facilities that allowed them to develop, test and prove new products but it was uneconomic for those companies to build such facilities and buy the required equipment individually.

Because New Zealand's export base was reliant on the food and beverage industries, the government wanted to encourage businesses to create more value from their products to help raise economic growth rate, he said.

The new initiative, called Food Innovation Network New Zealand, will be a collaboration between the government, industry, research and education providers and local government.

It will have four regional hubs in Palmerston North, Manukau, Waikato, and Canterbury, and an overarching network organisation.

Distinguished professor Paul Moughan was thrilled the campus would be getting the new equipment. "It will take us up with the best practice across the world."

Palmerston North is also home to the Riddet Institute, a centre for the country's top researchers in the food sciences.

- © Fairfax NZ News