Grant: Applied Research and Development Grants - Level 1

Buffalo Creek Mills is embarking on the implementation of an innovative processing system (RevTech) which uses a combination of humidity, heat and residence time to thermally treat whole grains and food ingredients. This technology provides a high degree of versatility in end-products with the opportunity to change the microstructure of the grain to induce puffing and expansion to create entirely new forms of oat products. This proposed project is essential to the successful implementation of the technology to Buffalo Creek Mills. It will create information of baseline oat quality of traditionally processed oats (e.g. kiln dried), build information of the effects of RevTech simulated treatments of oat groats on groat quality and support scale-up implementation of process treatments at Buffalo Creek Mills using their newly acquired RevTech equipment. RRC's PRKTAC will conduct research to build a quality assessment rubric for the effects of oat processing on key quality parameters required in oats. Previous trials with RevTech equipment conducted under a range of processing conditions demonstrated that cooking time and rancidity development in groats remained a quality issue in the process. Promising thermal treatments that meet the quality specification targets will be scaled-up at Buffalo Creek Mills using the RevTech Equipment. The resulting products will be evaluated against the quality assessment rubric generated. From this, new product prototypes to demonstrate the use of RevTech treated oats as a replacer for rice will be developed by the Prairie Research Kitchen's Culinary Research Team in three different flavour variations. Buffalo Creek Mills has the capacity to implement and further advance the results of this project as they have invested in new, innovative technology to aide in increased processing. The further understanding of the Rev Tech technology will enable Buffalo Creek Mills to produce novel oat ingredients for unique applications including toasted and puffed groats, par-cooked oat flours and flakes which can be used as ingredients in the development of further new food applications. The College team is looking forward to expanding on existing knowledge in oat processing and to build further connections with the Canadian agri-food industry. The knowledge gained will benefit students/interns working on the project, research personnel and faculty and will be useful in future research engagements with Buffalo Creek Mills.