Institute of Food Processing Technology Celebrates Its Grand Opening

Nov 16, 2012

Ontario’s Food and Beverage Manufacturing Sector Gets a Boost with Technology Centre

The food processing industry is hailed as Ontario’s largest manufacturing employer in the province. Given this status, it makes sense to invest in this sector. On Thursday, Conestoga College of Technology and Advanced Learning were pleased to have the grand opening of the Institute of Food Processing Technology (IFPT).

The opening of the IFPT was created in partnership with the Alliance of Ontario Food Processors (AOFP) and Conestoga College. The facility is a one-of-a-kind that seeks to focus on cultivating a skilled workforce – which will be unique to the needs of the sector.

The timing of the facility couldn’t have been better, as a recent study released by AOFP suggested that the food processing sector will face skilled workforce shortages by 2026. The creation of the IFPT will seek to address some of those future skill shortages and attempt to strengthen Ontario’s economy.

The new state-of-the-art facility will provide enhanced educational opportunities for students while meeting the needs of a growing food and beverage industry.

Video: Cleaning Sheep Barns & Setting Up Chutes

Indoor sheep farming in winter at pre-lambing time requires that, at Ewetopia Farms, we need to clean out the barns and manure in order to keep the sheep pens clean, dry and fresh for the pregnant ewes to stay healthy while indoors in confinement. In today’s vlog, we put fresh bedding into all of the barns and we remove manure from the first groups of ewes due to lamb so that they are all ready for lambs being born in the next few days. Also, in preparation for lambing, we moved one of the sorting chutes to the Coveralls with the replacement ewe lambs. This allows us to do sorting and vaccines more easily with them while the barnyard is snow covered and hard to move sheep safely around in. Additionally, it frees up space for the second groups of pregnant ewes where the chute was initially.