A UNBC Researcher and his team have hit a pivotal milestone on a project to create sustainable solutions for packaging seafood.
Dr. Hossein Kazemian and his team, along with Brown’s Bay Packing Company Ltd. have received a $300,000 Innovate BC Ignite Award to fund the next step in transforming a lab-proven, eco-friendly thermal packaging prototype into a commercially viable product.
According to UNBC, this initiative is expected to create 12 new full-time jobs and sustain existing positions in rural communities, while delivering an alternative to packaging made from petroleum-based plastics and polystyrene foam.
“We’ve been working closely with Brown’s Bay Packing in Campbell River to develop a fully compostable, biodegradable biopolymer packaging for more than four years. Over the course of our research, we identified a quicker path to address the immediate polystyrene foam problem through a recyclable hybrid solution,” Kazemian said.
“This Ignite Award helps accelerate the research and development tracks for what we’re calling Thermoloc – both the hybrid solution and the longer-term, fully compostable solution.”
“This partnership shows how university research can drive real-world solutions that benefit both our environment and the economy,” said UNBC Vice-President of Research and Innovation Dr. Paula Wood-Adams.
“Transforming leading-edge science into sustainable jobs, especially in rural and remote communities – is exactly the impact we aim to achieve.”
To date, the project has received almost $1.2 million from industry funding contributions, with additional in-kind contributions and support from the Natural Sciences and Engineering Research Council of Canada Alliance and the Mitacs Accelerate program.
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