18F Semesterly Report - Tortilla Expansion
The project is progressing, but all equipment is currently sitting in purchasing waiting to be released, built, and delivered.
The project is progressing, but all equipment is currently sitting in purchasing waiting to be released, built, and delivered.
The project has had many successful test trials using small amounts of product in our test kitchen, and we are anxiously awaiting the production equipment to arrive to start using more of the produce that is being grown.
The project has had much opportunity to develop test recipes and trial the equipment that has arrived, but is waiting on some key pieces to arrive. The harvester being provided by funding from Dining has also arrived and been tested in the field with this year’s harvest.
The seasoning line has arrived and is installed. The extruder system modifications PO has been issued and is in design/build process currently. We have been having a series of meetings to complete this work.
The sink has been fully installed and is meeting all goals of the project. Water usage from hand washing is down as a direct result of this installation, along with providing awareness of the use of water in a processing facility.
Spring 2018 semesterly report submitted to the Student Sustainability Committee for the hand sink replacement, tortilla expansion, juicing processing, pumpkin puree, and extrusion expansion projects.
At this year's Explore ACES, join the Student Sustainability Committee (SSC) and the Food Science & Human Nutrition (FSHN) Pilot Plant for a special SSC tour of the Pilot Plant facility! The plant gives students an experiential opportunity to test new food processing technologies, examine nutritional breakdowns, and contribute to the local food system. This special SSC tour will explore flour milling, tomato sauce processing, hot sauce processing, and more! You'll even get to taste hot sauce with peppers produced at the Sustainable Student Farm. We look forward to seeing you on March 9th at 9:15am, 11:00am, or 1:30pm. Signup here: https://goo.gl/forms/WAtT3klPwxmp8Eaq1
Fall 2017 Semesterly Report Submitted to the Student Sustainability Committee (SSC)
Fall 2017 Semesterly Report Submitted to the Student Sustainability Committee (SSC)
Fall 2017 Final Report Submitted to the Student Sustainability Committee (SSC)
The Illinois Sustainable Food Project (ISFP) strives to provide locally-sourced, healthy, and nutritious product for UIUC Dining while providing an educational experience to the student body. SSC grants the Food Science & Human Nutrition Pilot Processing Plant (FSHN-PPP) funding to complete four projects: Extrusion expansion, tortilla expansion, puree expansion, and a hand washing station. These four projects will bring new campus grown and produced foods to dining services while providing students with invaluable learning opportunities.
This project is a significant expansion of the current local food partnership existing between the Student Sustainable Farm (SSF), Multifunctional Woody Perennial Polyculture (MWP), FSHN Pilot Processing Plant (PPP), and UIUC Dining. Presently the Sustainable Agriculture Food System grows, processes, and serves on campus a variety of tomato sauces (pizza sauce is served across campus) and hot sauce. Soon, the Sustainable Agriculture Food System will add a whole wheat flour milling line. It have a very successful and growing program to provide quality, sustainable, and local food products and education to the UIUC students. This particular project will focus on the addition of a fresh juice processing line that will be able to handle a wide array of fruits and vegetables, packaged into an array of containers from single serving to bulk. As with the other projects, this partnership has no funding for large capital equipment expenditures, and relies on grants to increase our capacity. Dining Services is a strong partner in our project and has agreed to provide a grant to help with the purchase of items needed to produce fresh juice products including a harvester for fruit from the MWP site. The full proposal requested both juice extraction and juice bottling equipment. This phase of funding only covers the extraction and pasteurization equipment. This proposal directly funds: 1) Juice Extraction Equipment 2) Fruit Storage Containers 3) Pasteurization Equipment.
This project is a significant expansion of the current local food partnership existing between the Student Sustainable Farm (SSF), Multifunctional Woody Perennial Polyculture (MWP), FSHN Pilot Processing Plant (PPP), and UIUC Dining. Presently the Sustainable Agriculture Food System grows, processes, and serves on campus a variety of tomato sauces (pizza sauce is served across campus) and hot sauce. Soon, the Sustainable Agriculture Food System will add a whole wheat flour milling line. It have a very successful and growing program to provide quality, sustainable, and local food products and education to the UIUC students. This particular project will focus on the addition of a fresh juice processing line that will be able to handle a wide array of fruits and vegetables, packaged into an array of containers from single serving to bulk. As with the other projects, this partnership has no funding for large capital equipment expenditures, and relies on grants to increase its capacity. Dining Services is a strong partner in this project and has agreed to provide a grant to help with the purchase of items needed to produce fresh juice products including a harvester for fruit from the MWP site. The full proposal requested both juice extraction and juice bottling equipment. This phase of funding covers remaining bottling equipment costs. All bottles will feature messaging urging students to recycle and spotlighting sustainable goals and outcomes This proposal directly funds: 1) Bottling equipment 2) Some associated supplies.
This project allows campus to process wheat and oats grown on several of the UIUC campus farms into a finished flour product that will be utilized in the UIUC Campus Dining Halls. There are currently ~20 acres of ground planted in wheat/oats on the Urbana campus as part of large breeding program, and many more acres available off of the direct Urbana campus. Additionally, the University has significant acreage on campus that could be converted to grain production if needed.
Each acre of wheat produces 40-80 bushels of grain (2400-4800 lbs) depending on variety, producing up to ~4000 typical loaves of bread. The varieties of flour can be used to produce a number of products (bread, pastries, cakes, pasta, biscuits, etc.). One of the more exciting possibilities is making pizza dough to combine with the pizza sauce project already running, bringing campus dining very near an entirely locally produced pizza product.
The Sustainable Student Farm currently grows numerous varieties of hot chilies, but demand is often lacking in the dining halls over the summer and excess crops are simply composted. One option to help reduce this waste is adding fermentation capabilities to the current Sustainable Agriculture Food Systems to create hot sauce for the dining halls. One especially exciting aspect of this project is that the student body itself will have the opportunity to create different blends of sauces, with the winner of the taste test becoming the official hot sauce for the semester.
While this equipment will initially be used to create campus’s hot sauce, it can also be used in the future to create products ranging from sauerkraut and pickles to soy sauce and kombucha.