After years of planning by local food producers, local government and devoted volunteers, the Kootenay Farms Regional Food Hub and Innovation Centre opened today with a ribbon-cutting ceremony and wide smiles all around.
A shared-use facility, the Food Hub will produce juices, fruit and vegetable products and other goods from fresh products with the help of a large capacity freeze dryer, multi-purpose filling line, pasteurizers, and other food processing machinery. Producers who wish to use the equipment may book it and take advantage of Fields Forward’s on-site expertise.
Attendees at today’s ceremony included BC Minister of Agriculture and Food Lana Popham, Jocelyn Carver, Chair of the Columbia Basin Trust, and MLA Brittny Anderson. Popham noted the Creston facility is one of 12 in a food hub network springing up across the province. “I can’t wait to see the innovation and flavours that come out of the Kootenay region,” she said.
Click here to read a press release on today’s event.
