Food Innovation Center at CSU Spur ready to inspire Newtopia Now visitors

Colorado food entrepreneurs enjoy a wide range of competitive advantages. They work within an especially strong CPG and agricultural industry community, one full of mentors, leaders and investors, as well as labs, farmers markets and more. In addition, the dynamic lineup of cities stretching more than 130 miles from Colorado Springs to Fort Collins attracts legions of new residents, offering companies access to employees, experience and customers.

In 2022, the Food Innovation Center at the Colorado State University Spur in Denver joined the center of this community. The Center operates as a full-service technical incubator supporting food entrepreneurs, from startups to established brands. To date, it has worked with at least 50 clients, said Rachel Spears, Food & Ag Innovations Program coordinator at the Spur, which is housed in the new Terra building. All the clients turn to the Food Innovation Center’s team of industry professionals, including food scientists, nutritionists sensory scientists and food safety experts, for help launching and perfecting food products.

Meanwhile, the Spur offers separate innovation centers addressing water and veterinary medicine. All of them dwell in arresting, sustainable, eco-friendly buildings in an area that has held the National Western Stock Show since 1906.

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To showcase this new food industry gem, Naturally Boulder—a highly valuable organization for the region’s CPG community—is sponsoring an event at the CSU Spur to kick off Newtopia Now, New Hope Network's new B2B trade convention. The networking event will involve tours of the state-of-the-art facilities, introductions to the Spur’s groundbreaking research in agriculture, food systems and water resources, and spotlights on a variety of CPG innovations.

“Companies, many from Colorado but also from innovation hubs across the country like Silicon Valley and Austin, come to us looking for help with a product,” said Mike Gabel, the Food Innovation Center's director, during a tour of the Denver campus. “They might say, `We have my grandmother’s recipe'—we even had one client say he had his ex-wife’s recipe—'and we want to get this into stores.’ So we help them source ingredients, we look at processing, determine whether they want to self-manufacture or co-manufacture and much more.”

Center professionals help companies with issues such as shelf life, taste and texture, FDA regulations, food safety and other technical aspects of crafting CPGs.

Looking up and around the campus

New Hope Network’s tour included forward-thinking greenhouses on the Center’s roof., which Gabel said are among the most innovative in the world. The building’s roof also supports several expansive gardens. As the city of Denver has identified green roofs as important solutions to environmental problems, the Center supports a green roof research program, which includes consulting with Denver businesses to transform their roofs of concrete and asphalt into living environments.

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The Center has laboratories for produce, meat, dairy, food safety and food processing. It supports a culinary development kitchen, and sensory research spaces with tasting booths. Nutritionists help develop nutrition facts labels.

Also, agricultural and food science professionals can easily collaborate on whatever food research they are working on.

“We have complementary programs in food and agriculture innovation, as well as a master’s degree program that teaches the next generation of students to be entrepreneurs and start their own food products,” Sears said. “Or it will inspire them to join an innovation team in a larger company in the ever-changing food space and climate space.”

Newtopia Now, New Hope Network's new trade show, is set for Aug. 25-28 at the Colorado Convention Center in Denver, Colorado. For more information and to register, click here.