The Carasso Center for Food Science
Background - The Israeli Food Market
Main characteristics
Factories: ca. 1,000
Employees: ca. 60,000
Revenue: 50 billion NIS/year
Export: 2.6 billion NIS/year, 5% of total revenue
Centralization: 40% of the sector revenues are from four food manufacturer
The Need - The Food Industry
Many food and start-up companies cannot develop prototypes for their products in house, and need to outsource these services. Through research assistance, process and industry guidance, the academy can contribute to increased productivity, product improvement and streamline production.
Implementing Innovation
Adaptation to the new food trends
Adaptation to new food regulation (e.g. red stickers law)
The Galilee
The northern periphery needs significant economic strengthening. Lack of quality employment and negative migration of residents to the center require the state to find growth engine solutions. The national program for the promotion of the foodTech in the Galilee concentrates on creating an infrastructure, a regional "ecosystem" for the advancement of foodTech and AgroTech.
Vision
Establishing a National Food Institute at Tel-Hai College as part of the Food Tech Valley in the Galilee
The State of Israel has officially declared the Upper Galilee region and Kiryat Shmona area the nation’s ”FoodTech Valley”:
The FoodTech Ecosystem in the Hula Valley includes:
- MIGAL – GALILEE Research institute
- Margalit startup city- Galil, Kiryat Shemona
- Fresh Start- Israeli FoodTech Incubator, Kiryat Shemona
- FoodTech Indusry Park, Kiryat Shemona
- FoodTech Quarter, Kiryat Shemona
- The Azrieli Faculty of Medicine
The Carasso Center for Food Science
The Carasso Center for Food Science at Tel-Hai College will be constructed by the end of 2022 and will include the National Food Institute as well as all academic and research activities carried out at Tel-Hai College related to Food and FoodTech.
Components of the Center:
National Food Institute
The food institute will promote the Israeli food industry to be innovative, competitive and healthy. For that, the institute will develop and upgrade food products, implement novel production technologies and perform applied research, while establishing the north as the focal point of the Israeli food industry.
Targets:
1. Increase productivity in the food industry
2. Become a “one stop shop” from R&D to industrial prototype
3. Transferring knowledge from the academy to the Industry
The Department of Food Science:
The Department of Food Science at Tel-Hai College aspires to be a leading, innovative and dynamic department while committed to teaching academic and practical content at the highest level. Tel-Hai aims to be the top choice of students from the northern region and the entire country and to help them develop professional skills, with an emphasis on future integration in food factories and/or master’s degree studies.
As part of the unique offerings of the department, The Department of Food Science Tel-Hai offers a course entitled “Food Product Development Workshop”. This course is unique in Israel, existing only at Tel-Hai College. In the framework of the course, the students apply the knowledge and tools they have acquired during their studies to develop a product through all its stages. The students are required to choose the product they will develop, conduct a literature review of similar existing products, choose suitable raw materials, propose a production process, address technological problems in manufacturing the product, conduct research of limited scope to solve technological problems, apply computational perspectives learned in their courses, conduct taste tests, propose suitable quality control mechanisms for the product, determine the nutritional and health value, develop product packaging and set expiration dates. The curriculum provides the opportunity for practical experience in food factories and development of the required skills for the food industry.
Research labs
The labs include advanced analytical technological equipment such as: HPLC, GCMS, and Meter
Viscosity, texture gauge, as well as sensory equipment: electronic nose and electronic tongue.
Target population of the Center for Food Sciences
- FoodTech startups
- Big Companies
- SMEs
- Tel-Hai students and faculty, researchers from other institutions
Time table
Contractor bid December 2021
Construction start January 2022
Impact of the Center for Food Sciences
The Carasso Center for Food Sciences and the National Food Institute will serve as a nexus of innovation and applied research between the academia, the food industry and the FoodTech entrepreneurs. The Center will serve as a critical component in the FoodTech and AgroTech Ecosystem and create new growth and development streams in the Galilee, Israel and worldwide, while training students for careers in this important field.
Regional Impact
- FoodTech - Economic anchor of the region
- Historical opportunity for vision and regional planning
- The golden triangle: government, academia, industry
- Drawing of regional resources in the field of FoodTech and AgroTech
- Establishing new companies
- Micro Industrial Area in Kiryat Shmona – 11,000 square meters
- Employment - The addition of 5,000 technology jobs within 7-10 years. Between 5-3 support positions for each technology job.
- Cumulative effect of 15,000 additional jobs.
- Upgrading and strengthening the academia
- Strengthening the connection between academia and regional entities (local government, local industry, agriculture)
- Connection between the incubator and accelerator in Kiryat Shemona to the academia. Innovations from the Department of Food Sciences develop at Tel-Hai's Innovation Center, move to the incubator and to the accelerator and from there to the industry.
- Opening new horizons for the area's residents with a focus on youth.
Get a glimps of Tel-Hai's FoodTech activities at
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=z3qyK7TWOuY&t=1s
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