Located in the Punjab, the new facility will be part of India's first agri-food research park. The project is designed to bring together expertise from the fields of agricultural sciences, food processing and biotechnology.
"This arrangement will provide mutually beneficial results," explains POS President and CEO Robert E. Morgan. "We see it as an opportunity to participate in building India's bioprocessing industry for the development of new foods and other bioproducts. "
Situated in Saskatoon, Saskatchewan, POS Pilot Plant is a not-for-profit organization that works with the biodiesel and natural health products industries.
Officials of the Government of India signed a deal with POS for over $1m in project work.
POS said it will help Punjab develop products that meet international quality standards. In a symbiotic manner, the company said it will in turn benefit from the international exposure from this work, thereby helping it with its North American operations.
Back home, POS specializes in process and product development, custom processing, and analytical services. It helps organizations to develop value-added components to food, feed and wellness ingredients.
The groundwork for strengthening scientific collaboration between Canada and India was laid last November when Morgan travelled to the country with representatives from the Canadian government as well as those from academic and research partners. As a result of that visit several other collaborative arrangements have been formalized with the participants.
Earlier this year, the Canadian bioproduct research and development facility received an approximately C$3m boost from the federal and provincial governments.
The funding was part of a multi-million dollar Agricultural Policy Framework funding package announced by the federal and provincial governments.
Canada has seen numerous government-funded research and development facilities crop up recently, as politicians look for a way to extract more profitability out of some of the country's lagging agricultural and commodities sectors - such as grains and fisheries.
