Innovation in the agrifood business comes often with the need to test your products in pilot scale environments. This testing is often outsourced or done at other facilities. Do you want to know what pilot facilities the StartLife network offers? Down below are some of the options.
StartLife happily support you connecting with any of these facilitators. If you are interested, or have a specific need that is not addressed by the facilities below, send us a message!
Pilot facilities of Wageningen University & Research
Wageningen Bioveterinary Research has combined animal and laboratory services to facilitate your research in different fields of expertise, such as vaccine development, clinical trials, and nutrition. Their animal facilities cover over 10,000 m2 of animal rooms, ranging from farm-like conditions to a high-containment unit (HCU) under human Biosafety Level 3 (BSL 3) and veterinary Biosafety Level 4 (BSL 4).
Wageningen Marine Research has marine and laboratory facilities for various research, such as sampling surveys, ecological tests, and section on (marine) animals. They also have extensive knowledge and data sets that help us provide stakeholders with policy support and advice.
The experts of Greenhouse Horticulture & Flower Bulbs (Wageningen Plant Research) are dedicated to innovating for and with the sector. They work together with companies, government authorities and other knowledge institutes. Topics are greenhouse climate & energy, sustainable crop production, water& nutrient efficiency, advanced systems & robotics, quality & nutrition, new business models, and flower bulbs.
Unifarm (Wageningen University & Research) is the right place for all your experiments with plants. They facilitate and supervise the cultivation part of plant and crop research. They have 240 ha of experimental fields with different soil types, 15 000 m2 glass, climate rooms, climate cabinets, cold/freezer rooms, storage rooms, processing rooms, drying cabinets, measuring equipment, etc.
Wageningen Food & Biobased Research has three facilities: The Biobased Products Innovation Plant is a large R&D facility used by scientists to develop innovative processes to convert green raw materials (biomass) into biobased products. They also have a research facility for postharvest technology and robotics, this facility researches the shelf life of fresh food products and the possibilities for the use of robots in the agri-food sector. The third facility is Recycling Lab Wageningen.
AlgaePARC is a pilot facility for research on production and biorefinery of microalgae. They are focused on developing cost-effective and sustainable microalgae production methods outdoors. AlgaePARC focusses also on economic and sustainability assessment of the entire chain for defining the research program which integrates biological and engineering aspects of cultivation and biorefinery.
Other pilot facilities
NIZO has process design & test trials to optimize your current processes, to design new product processes or to look for alternative applications for product waste streams. NIZO offers an extensive pilot facility, covering upstream and downstream processing. Available unit operations for downstream processing include heat treatment, membrane filtration, centrifugation, homogenization, evaporation, and various drying methods, like spray drying and vacuum drum drying.
Although Dairy Campus focuses on the entire dairy chain from grass to glass, most activities deal with the milk production side of the dairy chain. On their 14-hectare Dairy Campus site, they have six units housing a total of 550 cows. They also have various working spaces, training rooms and a reception building with offices.
Your pilot facility in this list?
Do you have a pilot testing environment you are willing to share? Let us know!