Grant: Applied Research and Development Grants - Level 1

Red Rover Craft Cidery (RRCC), located in Fredericton, New Brunswick recognized a significant gap and capitalized on that market opportunity by developing a new craft cider industry in New Brunswick. In the beginning, education was the key to the growth of this unique company. The public was neither accustomed to nor understood craft hard ciders so initially they branded themselves as a brewery. As they established a reputation within the community and the cider industry grew, they changed their name to Red Rover Craft Cidery. In 2016, they out grew their original home and moved to a larger capacity space and have been steadily growing ever since. Red Rover has been experimenting with new kombucha products on a bench scale as a possible avenue for expansion. Red Rover approached Holland College Canada's Smartest Kitchen, the food product research and development arm of the Culinary Institute of Canada and an NSERC Technology Access Center, to help solve technical challenges they are experiencing with the development of new kombucha products, incorporating flavours and the scale up of production.