Local innovation helps Ontario company launch new food product line
By Lilian Schaer for Bioenterprise Canada
An innovative new product line has been brought to market by an Ontario company, which offers customers a fast, fresh, gourmet vegetable dish in six minutes or less.
To bring its vision to reality, EarthFresh Farms accessed funding from the FoodShift program delivered by Bioenterprise Canada.
Funded by the Government of Canada through the Federal Economic Development Agency for Southern Ontario (FedDev Ontario), FoodShift offers up to $50,000 in matching funding to help food and beverage processors adopt clean technologies.
“Our focus is on providing the best quality product to our customers, while respecting the environment we grow and operate in,” explains Jessica Hughes, Director of Innovation at EarthFresh.
The company supplies fresh vegetables to food service and retail customers in Canada and the United States, and is vertically integrated in all aspects of the potato industry from seed breeding to packing and distribution.
EarthFresh has the largest stock of exclusive varieties in North America and has now expanded into other vegetables, including sweet potatoes, carrots, onions, brussels sprouts and more.
Last year, the company launched Fast. Fresh. Gourmet. (FFG), a line of quick, fresh and healthy produce products that can be served as a meal or a side dish. FFG features a patent-pending, one-step process that provides users with a dish in six minutes or less, without consumers having to clean the vegetables before cooking.
“Fresh produce is packed in the bottom of our bag with a fresh pack of sauce placed on top. The user simply cooks the bag in the microwave for the specified amount of time per vegetable, and the sauce pack pops open during cooking and coats the vegetables,” Hughes explains.
As an added food safety step to minimize the risk of foodborne illness, EarthFresh worked with another Ontario company, Clean Works, to install its waterless, chemical-free decontamination technology into the FFG packing line.
Clean Works’ proprietary system uses ultraviolet light, vapourized hydrogen peroxide and ozone to kill 99.9 percent of pathogens that cause food-borne illness. By eliminating molds and bacteria, Clean Works also extends the shelf life of fresh produce, reducing food waste and increasing the sustainability of FFG products.
“The Clean Works technology gives us the peace of mind that we are producing the safest, highest quality product we can,” she says. “FoodShift played a critical role in this project; we couldn’t have implemented this technology without this funding.”
The FFG product line currently includes six flavours of potatoes, four flavours of carrots, and four flavours of brussels sprouts. EarthFresh is working on launching them into the U.S. market by fall of 2024. At the same time, work is underway on both new flavours and produce items to expand the FFG product offering.
Bioenterprise is Canada’s Food & Agri-Tech Engine, a national agri-technology focused commercialization accelerator. Bioenterprise uses its more than 20 years of industry experience and a global network of experts, mentors, funders, researchers, and industry partners to help small and medium-sized agri-food businesses connect, innovate and grow. Learn more.
For 14 years, the Government of Canada, through FedDev Ontario, has worked to advance and diversify the southern Ontario economy through funding opportunities and business services that support innovation, growth and job creation in Canada’s most populous region.
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