Laboratories
SEAMK Food Labs laboratory facilities as a development platform for education, research, and business
SEAMK Food Labs laboratories form an integrated environment where product development, quality assurance, and process testing succeed under one roof. Alongside education, the facilities are equipped to serve both straightforward, limited experiments and demanding, large-scale RDI activities.
Explore the SEAMK Food Labs research environment on a virtual tour with Matterport!
Process laboratories
Process laboratories enable the testing of product ideas at laboratory and pilot scales. The facility consists of two separate laboratories, allowing for the management of different process requirements.
- High-hygiene laboratory: Designed especially for the development of meat, dairy, and beverage products for wet processes.
- Dry process facility: Focuses on the handling and processing of powdery and dusty raw materials, e.g., in baking and extrusion processes.
- Separate milling facility: Milling and sieving of dry raw materials.
Adaptability has been emphasized in the use of the facilities. A large portion of the equipment is mobile, allowing for the flexible construction of test setups according to the needs of each project.
Applications: Prototype development, process optimization, packaging of product samples, testing of new technologies.
Analysis Laboratories
Analysis laboratories act as a link between primary production raw materials and finished food products. The key objective is to verify through measurement how processing, recipe changes, or adjustments to manufacturing parameters affect the properties of the raw material or final product. In addition to measurement and imaging, the facilities enable small-scale chemical and biological treatment experiments, such as fermentation and extraction.
- Pre-analysis laboratory: Focuses on physical measurements and imaging. Numerical data is produced here on properties that are traditionally evaluated sensorially, such as texture, color, and composition.
- Chemistry laboratory: Equipped for experiments requiring chemical handling as well as microbiological testing. The space includes a separate area for larger-scale research projects. Both laboratories are equipped with fume hoods for safe working conditions.
Analytical equipment allows for the determination of numerical values for product quality and properties on a “before and after” basis. This provides indicative information on, for example, shelf life and ensures that changes made during process development have taken the product in the desired direction.
Applications: Physical texture and color measurements, chemical and microbiological determinations, small-scale process experiments (e.g., fermentation, extraction), shelf-life studies.
Agrolaboratory
Primary production test environments serve primary producers, technology developers, and the agricultural input industry broadly by offering measured data on the effects of cultivation measures. For the food industry, the Agrolaboratory opens a view to the source of raw materials: how quality is built in the field and how it affects raw material processability.
The Agrolaboratory complex combines the soil laboratory located at Frami, the Ilmajoki teaching farm, and field measurement environments. Here, we study soil health, new cultivation techniques, as well as carbon sequestration and emissions.
Applications: Soil analysis, carbon sequestration and emissions, development of cultivation techniques, verification of raw material quality.
Teaching Restaurant Prikka and Sensory Laboratory
Teaching Restaurant Prikka is a genuine professional kitchen and restaurant environment where the functionality of a product and concept is ultimately measured on the plate. For companies, this offers a platform to test product suitability for large-scale food service operations and gather feedback in a genuine consumption situation.
The restaurant’s 60-seat hall with a river view also operates as a lunch and reservation-only restaurant. It is possible to rent the facilities for companies’ own private events and meetings.
Sensory laboratory is a separate space designed specifically for sensory research use. Special attention has been paid to standardizing conditions: the space has its own separate ventilation and neutral white evaluation booths. This guarantees undisturbed peace for work and ensures that taste, odor, and texture analyses are based on reliable, scientific data without distortions from environmental factors.
Applications: Recipe reformulation and large-scale suitability, sensory evaluation in standardized conditions, consumer testing, corporate events and meetings
Contact information:
By email at: foodlabs(a)seamk.fi
By phone at: +358406807538
You can contact us using contact form
Our location:
SeAMK Campus in Seinäjoki
Street address: Kampusranta 9-11
Postal code: 60320 Seinäjoki
See more detailed locations here.
This website has been produced as part of the Future Frami Food Lab development project.
Future Frami Food Lab is an ERDF-funded project. The main objective of the project is to increase the role of South Ostrobothnia as a food region and as a leading expert in food technology and processes in Finland and as an internationally significant actor. The project also strengthens SeAMK Food Labs’ role as a testing platform for food technologies and processes and as an identified competence cluster in the field.
