The Brightlands Campus Greenport has opened two new facilities on tuesday: the Nutritional Concepts Lab – the facility for the test and production of healthy food and Box-in-Boxes – new office space in Brightlands Campus Greenport.
Nutritional Concepts Lab
“It’s a unique facility, the only one in the world,” say the creators of the Nutritional Concepts Lab that has been opened in Brightlands Campus Greenport. The Nutritional Concepts Lab is an R&D facility for processing fruits and vegetables into personalized food products. It is the tenth research laboratory of the campus. The main user of the Nutritional Concepts Lab will be MiFood – the company that develops and produces personalized food products (smoothies and various types of snacks) made of smart fruits and vegetable mixes. The research that has been conducted on personalized fruits and vegetables mixes suggests that incorporating them in the diet helps to prevent the development of certain chronic illnesses. The new Nutritional Concepts Lab in Greenport was built to make such tailor-made food products that retain as many bioactive compounds in fruits and vegetables as possible by the specially developed gentle processing of the raw materials. Using the new facility at the campus, MiFood will make a range of their personalized food products available to the consumers.
The Nutritional Concepts Lab facility
During the opening of the Nutritional Concepts Lab the guests could take a guided tour inside of the three-floored food test and production facility and show the core parts of the machine: the blender for fruits and vegetables which blends them into a smoothie that can consumed on its own or it can be used as a part of another product. For that purpose, the smoothie is transferred into another area of the facility and used for the double coating of vacuumed fruits and vegetables – in order to create the combinations of fruits and vegetables that bring most benefits to health. “There is no sugar or water added in the smoothie – only 100% fruits and vegetables like cauliflower, broccoli blueberry, raspberry. The mixture of 16 fruits and vegetables in total,” says Raymond Nolet, the director of MiFood.
Personalized nutrition smoothie
“In the Nutritional Concepts Lab it is possible to stir-fry the raw materials or to treat them with hot air on and make snack out of them, the only thing we don’t do with the products here is the extrusion because we want to keep all the vitamins and nutrients in the fruits and vegetables,” says Raymond Nolet.
The Nutritional Concepts Lab also contributes to the sustainability: the heat that it produces is used in the building where the facility is located. The products made in the lab are made in cooperation with the food producers and reduce food waste. “In addition to the usual first quality fruits and vegetables we use the ones which sizes, shapes or colours are not meeting the standards – normally they are just thrown away, but here we make use of them in our products,” says the director of MiFood.
Box-in-Boxes
Box-in-Boxes are set up in Villa Flora in Venlo to create more office spaces for the new residents of the campus. There are 21 office spaces 24 m2 each. It is also possible to use Box-in-Boxes as laboratories or R & D facilities.
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