Grant: Applied Research and Development Grants - Level 2

Connors Brothers Clover Leaf brand foods (CBCL) is a world leader in canned seafood products with almosthalf the share of all Canadian canned seafood market. The Clover Leaf and Bumblebee brands operate as awholly owned subsidiaries of Connors Bros and are two of the world's top 10 leading suppliers of shelf stableseafood. Canada's Smartest Kitchen, the food product research and development center, co-located withinHolland College's Culinary Institute of Canada is a national leader in food innovation and an NSERCTechnology Access Center. Connor Bros. Clover Leaf and CSK have an established research partnership datingback several years and have worked closely on the development of several new products destined for Caribbeanmarkets. This research proposal is looking to build on the well-established relationship between CBCL andCSK to help develop new innovative value added seafood products in Atlantic Canada in order to help meet theworldwide demand of their products while maintaining a level of sustainability of the dwindling fish stocks.Canada's Smartest Kitchen will work closely with CBCL over the span of this proposed two year project todevelop new innovative products, while reducing waste, providing value to underutilized products and trainingemployees and new culinary students. Canada's Smartest Kitchen will provide hands on educationalexperiences to students of the Culinary Institute of Canada while also teaching employees of CBCL theproprietary SMART food product development process that CSK has developed and now implements for eachof the new research and development projects it undertakes.There are several food product ideas that CBCL has approached CSK to explore and further develop, includinga seafood protein analog, a fish Vienna sausage product, ready to eat tuna meals, and skinned and de-bonedsardine filets. Each of these products would be new to the marketplace and would require extensive researchinto the properties of ingredients, flavours, processing requirements and capacity. For each of the products,there would also require market research, sensory testing, focus groups, and ideation. Ground-up product