Interested in developing a food product or have an existing product that you'd like to optimize? The Consortium RITA can help bring your ideas to life!
Food businesses can collaborate with McGill University Food Science students, dedicated interns, and formulation experts involved in the Consortium RITA’s Food Product Development Laboratory (FPDL) to develop prototypes and address product challenges.
The FPDL can help food companies develop their product model, which can be adapted for commercial production and the food market. Projects are affordable, short-term, flexible, and expertly guided. The approach is personalized and provides you with a concept that corresponds to your vision, your brand image, and your target consumer.
We’re cooking up a bright future for the food industry!
Projects that support the next generation
Our mission is to develop collaborative projects that train and inspire students by giving them practical experience while supporting stakeholders in the agri-food sector, notably start-ups.
Upon submission of your product concept or problem, a three-month collaborative food product development project is established with bachelor's or master's students. Throughout the course of the project, the students involved conduct a market analysis, design and optimize product prototypes, and evaluate the final product’s properties before concluding with a final presentation of their results. Students are supported by Dr. Salwa Karboune and Dr. Amanda Waglay, who expertly guide them through each step.
Two types of FPDL projects
Food Product Development Course (FDSC 405)
For this type of project, the company provides a general product concept that student teams may interpret. The concept can specify certain product characteristics such as ingredients but must allow a broad ideation process to correspond to the course’s learning objectives.
Scheduling: September to December
Food Product Development Internships
For this type of project, student interns work on a more specific concept brought forward by an industry partner where they can explore the feasibility of a new concept, optimize a formulation, provide possible solutions to an identified problem, screen ingredients, or achieve other goals.
Are you a Food Science student? Are you interested in developing hands-on skills while building professional relationships in the food sector? Contactfpd.consortiumrita [at] mcgill.ca (subject: Stage%20-%20FPDL) ( Amanda Waglay) to learn more about internship opportunities in the Consortium RITA's FPDL!
Services that meet your needs
The Food Product Development Laboratory is comprised of a kitchen preparation area, a demonstration room, sensory evaluation facilities, a multifunctional space, and a laboratory equipped with processing and analysis instrumentation. These facilities allow us to undertake, within the framework of your project, a variety of approaches:
- Prototype development
- Formulation optimization
- Simple physico-chemical analyses
- Textural property improvements
- Literature review
- Sensory evaluation
- Shelf-life determination
- Acceptability and consumer perception studies
- And more
A variety of solutions achieved through flexible infrastructure
Past and present collaborators
"What a great opportunity to work with the McGill Food Product Development Laboratory! The team helped us identify our problems and provided us with concrete results to better guide our thinking and product development."
-Oumou Keita, Co-founder of Limonades OFLORE
The following companies also partnered with the FPDL (and helped the next generation of food scientists develop new skills!):