Boise State’s Food and Dairy Innovation Center recently celebrated its new location in the Micron Center for Materials Research. The center held an open house to showcase student research projects and its new facilities. Afterward, it hosted a reception in the Stueckle Sky Center for Boise State faculty, staff and students alongside leaders from Idaho’s food and dairy industry.
The Food and Dairy Innovation Center applies a multi-disciplinary approach to challenges in the food and dairy industry. It partners with local companies including Daisy Brand, Chobani, Glanbia, McCain Foods, Cinder Wines and Telaya Wine Company. Since its founding in 2021, the center has brought more than $20 million to Boise State in external research funding.
The center studies problems critical to Idaho producers. It explores how wildfire smoke affects potato growth, vitamin degradation in crops, pulsed electric field applications in wine production and more.
Undergraduate and graduate students are some of the center’s primary beneficiaries. They develop research experience through Food and Dairy Innovation Center projects and build professional networks that help launch careers after graduation.
“In the fall of 2024, the Food and Dairy Innovation Center was relocated into newly constructed laboratory spaces and state-of-the-art scientific instrumentation is being added at a blistering pace,” said Owen McDougal, director of the Food and Dairy Innovation Center and professor of chemistry. “The goal of the center is to facilitate public-private partnerships to serve the state of Idaho.”
“We are honored to play a part in sustaining our state’s rich agricultural heritage and history while investing in and innovating for Idaho’s future with our transdisciplinary research,” said College of Arts and Sciences Dean Leslie Durham. “In so many ways, Boise State works for Idaho, and so does the Food and Dairy Innovation Center.”