Charlottetown Metal Products Ltd (CMP) and FPS Food Process Solutions (FPS) announced plans for an Innovation Center located at CMP’s manufacturing complex on Prince Edward Island, Canada. 

Renovations of the 10,000-sq.-ft. (930-sq.-meter) Innovation Center is expected to be completed over the next year. There are currently seven innovation projects in the pipeline. The first project to be completed was the development of an end-to-end solution for packaged food products. Several technologies were incorporated into a 40-ft. conveyor loop to handle the transfer, alignment, merge and diverge of packaged food products to and from chillers, freezers and other processing equipment. Projects now underway focus on full process line solutions that bring operational efficiencies in the areas of energy utilization, process automation and increasing production yields.

The Innovation Center will be staffed with process engineers, design engineers, controls specialists and technicians with experience across the food processing industry. Growth plans are already underway to add 10 additional team members that will complement the 165 employees currently on staff at CMP. Financial support has come from Innovation PEI. In addition, CMP is receiving advisory services and research and development funding from the National Research Council of Canada Industrial Research Assistance Program (NRC IRAP) to support innovations in food processing and line optimization.

"I am delighted we have this opportunity to re-invest company profits into innovation. We are working hard to build a better future with advanced food processing machinery and process line solutions,” states Trevor Spinney, president, Charlottetown Metal Products Ltd.

Jeffrey Chang, president, FPS Food Process Solutions Corp., adds, "FPS has had a longstanding commitment to innovation which has fueled our rapid growth since company inception. Through our combined efforts, our continued focus on innovation has resonated well with new and existing customers."