Grant: Engage Grants Program

Ice Syrup? is a novel, uniquely Canadian food product produced from Icewine grapes. The juice that is pressed from naturally frozen grapes is further concentrated through a patent-pending process that results in a syrup highly concentrated in sugar, acids and flavour compounds. However, stability issues have arisen with the syrup in the form of undesirable precipitated compounds after bottling. The exact nature of the precipitate is unknown, but several possibilities exist that must be resolved for Ice Syrup? production to continue as a high quality Canadian product. This project is designed to first identify the compounds precipitating from the syrup, then investigate which step(s) of the production process are causing the product instability to understand the mechanism of precipitate formation, and lastly to develop methods that can be implemented in the production process to prevent future product instability while at the same time, ensuring that the final product is of the highest taste, aroma and visual quality. Because Ice Syrup? is a non-alcohol based food product with many downstream applications in the food industry, it brings a new level of diversity to the Canadian grape industry, further contributing to the sustainability of this agriculture sector, with new job creation for the syrup operation, preventing job loss in local grape growing operations, and finding a productive use of surplus grapes in Ontario. Ice Syrup? is truly a new Canadian innovative food product that could have a significant global marketing impact.