Türkiye to become center of value-added food production: Minister

ANKARA

Türkiye will become the center of value-added food and beverages production thanks to the newly launched Food Innovation Center, Industry and Technology Minister Mustafa Varank said.

The Food Innovation Center and the Türkiye Food Innovation Platform (TÜPİG) were inaugurated in the Gebze district with a ceremony attended by Varank and the head of the EU Delegation to Türkiye, Nikolaus Meyer-Landrut.

“For the first time, a facility at such a scale and capabilities for the food industry was established. This facility and the platform will strengthen R&D in the food and beverages industry,” Varank said, speaking at the ceremony, stressing that sustainability and productivity in the food industry are a must.

“By exploiting the opportunities, which the new world order offers, in a proper manner, we will further improve our potential and turn our country into a production base in the world in the food industry,” the minister added.

The innovation center was built on a closed area of 5,800 square meters which hosts nine pilot processing facilities, 84 laboratory equipment and 800 advanced types of machinery and equipment, Varank wrote on Twitter.

The innovation center and the platform were developed under the INNOFOOD project.

The new center, which operates on the premises of the Gebze campus of the Scientific and Technological Research Council of Türkiye (TÜBITAK), and the platform will provide R&D support to local companies to help them improve their competitiveness in international markets.

The cluster platform TÜPİG will help companies materialize their projects and offer solutions to firms to reduce their innovation-related and R&D costs. The innovation center is also designed to serve as an incubation center for entrepreneurs in the food industry.