Economic Development Highlights 2022

Cornell AgriTech is not only a hub for research and extension but a place where entrepreneurs can come for business mentoring, technology and innovation, connections to business-to-business partnerships, training programs, supply chain assets, government economic development incentives, and capital resources.

To help grow New York’s farm and food economy, we also add new programs and services to help meet the needs of evolving food and ag industries. In 2022, we kicked off plans to launch a Food Innovation Lab and a Fermentation Farming Lab. Both are close to completion and will allow food producers to further revolutionize their products.

Center of Excellence for Food and Agriculture

Our Center of Excellence for Food and Agriculture (CoE) continued to demonstrate impactful results statewide by growing New York’s agri-food sector in 2022. Since its inception in 2018, the CoE has worked with companies of all sizes across the state by offering access to resources to help create, build and boost both traditional and innovative companies within the food, beverage and agriculture industries. The CoE’s motto of “push, pull and grow” has continued to be a driving force within New York state to create quantifiable positive economic impacts, including job creation.

a pair of hands holds a bottle of elderberry tonic

600

Companies worked with

$90M

positive economic impacts on NYS companies

450+

jobs created

Company success story highlights

VM AgriTech

VM AgriTech, a company from the United Kingdom that makes the copper-based fungicide Curezin, came to the CoE in the fall of 2021 for assistance in facilitating their move to the United States. The CoE assisted VM Agritech with applying for several programs through Empire State Development, including the Excelsior Jobs Program, Economic Development Fund Program and START-UP NY Program. So impressed by the ecosystem of expertise and innovation offered at Cornell AgriTech, VM Agritech decided to lease lab space within the CoE. The economic incentive programs, paired with the assistance from the CoE and Cornell, will help the company reach its aggressive goal of having Curezin manufactured and ready for commercial markets by the end of 2023.

Read more about VM Agritech

Levelle

Levelle Inc. co-founders Linda Alvarez and Stephanie Schrauth never planned on becoming entrepreneurs. But a class project in their Cornell Executive MBA Metro NY program brought them together to create an energy food product for female athletes. With little experience in food manufacturing, they turned to the CoE for help turning Levelle from class project into a bustling startup company ready to hit the market. To begin production, the CoE connected Levelle with the Cornell Food Venture Center, which worked with Alvarez and Schrauth to take the fruity purees made at home and turn them into a squeezable, shelf-stable pouch.

Read more about Levelle

Perfeito

Patricia Springer knew that if she wanted her new line of Brazilian seasonings to taste like the mixes her mother cooked with, she needed to use fresh garlic. However, garlic introduces questions of shelf stability and food safety.

With the help of the Cornell Food Venture Center and the CoE, she was able to produce a shelf-stable product with fresh garlic that’s proven to be such a smash hit that Wegmans will soon begin stocking two varieties of Springer’s seasonings at more than 100 of its largest stores across the East Coast – the first major retail partner in the company’s young history.

Read more about Perfeito

A pair of hands holding a beet cut in half

Linda Alvarez and Stephanie Schrauth pouring a bucket of fruit puree into another vessel.

Left: Perfeito Fodos founder Patricia Springer. Right: Advertisement reading "Perfeito soon to Wegmans"

Boosting the Concord Grape industry

In December of 2022, Cornell AgriTech hosted its first-ever Concord Grape Innovation Competition with support from the New York State Department of Agriculture and Markets. Over $100,000 in cash prizes were given to entrepreneurs, along with support from Cornell experts to develop novel Concord-based foods and beverages.

New services to grow the food economy

Food Innovation Lab

A state-of-the-art Food Innovation Lab will open its doors in summer 2023. A partnership between the CoE and the CFVC, this new facility is located on the ground floor of the Food Science Laboratory on our campus. The lab will expand food and beverage product development, allowing entrepreneurs to innovate by using cooking/baking/processing methods and lab testing equipment to create prototypes with support from CFVC Pilot Plant experts. Experimentation in the lab will afford entrepreneurs the opportunity to find the right mix of ingredients and processes so they can commercialize their products. Business development support from the CoE and CFVC’s wide array of programs and services will help these fledgling companies on their road to success while spurring the development of new and exciting food products.

Fermentation Farming Laboratory

The Fermentation Farming Laboratory will begin operating in fall 2023. Plans for the lab have been developed to create opportunities for cutting-edge research and services to grow the private sector through commercialization that will create investment and jobs in New York. Among the lab’s goals are turning fiber into feedstock; creating protein, bioplastics and other bioproducts from waste streams; expressing proteins for food, enzymes and other special uses; developing novel food products in conjunction with the Cornell Food Venture Center; and conducting mathematical modeling to scale up products and develop new equipment. The lab will partner with private sector companies to conduct applied research and advance scientific discovery to profoundly impact our planet by reducing environmental hazards and increasing food supplies.

A man in a white lab coat holds a sign reading "Cornell Fermentation Farming Lab" in an industrial lab

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