Program Item Details
TITLE: Dr. Paul Kolodziejczyk, Lead Research Scientist, and Program Head, New Products from Crops and Bioprocessing, Olds College School of Innovation, Olds
SUBJECT: #172 Dark Berries Research
SYNOPSIS: ..
AUDIO: Download Audio (mp3 format)
TRANSCRIPT:
#172 August 2, 2005
Interview starts at 1:04
Intro: Over the last few years, a lot of attention has focused on the health benefits of eating blueberries and cranberries for the prevention of cancer and other diseases. The spotlight is now shifting to a group of fruits known as “dark berries”. These are black currants and saskatoons. Surprising as it may seem, Alberta could become a major producer, processor and exporter of dark berries. That’s why berry producers in central Alberta have teamed up with Olds College and Alberta Ingenuity. Dr. Paul Kolodziejczyk is the lead research scientist with the Olds College School of Innovation.
Dr. Paul Kolodziejczyk
KP: Okay, why black currants. First of all this is a fruit which is good for moderate and cold climate. So we can grow it here in Alberta. It’s grown extensively in Europe, in central Europe, in Poland and also in Scotland, where the climate is not very tropical, and also in New Zealand. So those are the biggest producers of black currants.
Now, black currant juice is extremely rich in antioxidants and in colourants. We call them anthocynins. Anthocyanins are also anti-oxidants but also they play many other roles in human and animal organisms. Some are important for our vision, some are important for protecting against diabetes and some other diseases. So we believe black currant is a perfect plant to be grown in Alberta because we can produce not only juice, but we can produce products for neutriceuticals and the functional food industry. And also from the skins, we can extract anthocyanins and from the seed, we can extract oil, which is GLA - gamma linoleic acid.
CC: WELL IT’S NOT JUST BLACK CURRANTS. WE’RE HERE TODAY AT THE D’nA GARDENS AND THEY’RE ALSO GROWING SASKATOONS. WHAT IS IT THAT’S SIMILAR BETWEEN THE TWO BERRIES THAT GIVES THEM THIS SORT OF HEALTHY ASPECT?
KP: Well both berries, they are so called “dark berries,” they have same kind of compounds, chemical substances, anthocyanins. However, this composition could be slightly different. And they have different antioxidants, different phenolics. Both Saskatchewan berries and black currants, they are excellent protectants against free radicals, against oxidation reaction.
As you know, as we are getting old, all these free radicals are causing lots of damage in our DNA, in our other tissues, especially fat tissues. It’s very important to take lots of antioxidants. And this trend is very strong lately.
CC: WELL THIS IS SOMETHING THAT’S REALLY NEW FOR ALBERTA. WHERE DOES IT FIT INTO THE BIGGER PICTURE?
KP: Well saying we get a picture. Our role as Olds College School of Innovation is to help local industry, especially small and medium size companies, to develop marketable products. And, of course, those companies usually don’t have enough scientific expertise, they don’t laboratories, they don’t have instrumentation which is quite expensive.
It was a couple of years ago that we created Olds College Centre for Innovation, which was supposed to be an incubator for helping industry to develop exactly these kinds of products. Now we are thinking about value-added products from anything coming from agriculture. So it could be fruit, it could be of course herbal materials, it could be medicinal plants. And we are working with several companies on this.
CC: IN THIS PARTICULAR RESEARCH PROJECT YOU ARE COLLABORATING WITH ALBERTA INGENUITY AND ALSO D’nA GARDENS. HOW DOES THAT WORK?
KP: Well how it works. Olds College Centre for Innovation, which is called now Olds College School of Innovation, has been set with money coming from private and public sources. Our biggest funder was Canadian Foundation for Innovation, but also we have provincial agencies like AVAC and Alberta Ingenuity which have helped us quite a bit to develop this facility.
We got support for our previous post doc who was with us for two years working on medicinal plants and aromatic plants. And now we are really lucky in getting support from Alberta Ingenuity for this exciting project on anthocyanins coming from dark berries.
CC: NOW I FIND IT INTERESTING THAT YOU ACTUALLY HAD TO BRING A RESEARCHER FROM POLAND TO DO THE WORK. WHY POLAND?
KP: Why Poland? Well it was kind of coincident because we had been working with a group of people from Poland on some other antioxidants and I learned that a big center of research on black berries is in Poland, actually it’s Professor Jan Olszmianski who is heading this center in Wroclaw, Poland. And he is also the head of a European program of black berries and the utilization of black berry products
Poland is the biggest producer in Europe of black currant. They do not grow Saskatchewan berries, but they have some other plants like aronia. And all the juices you can even buy here in Alberta in specialty stores.
CC: WHEN YOU LOOK AT THE FRUIT ITSELF, IT COMES ON IN ABOUT A TWO OR THREE WEEK PERIOD AND THEN IT’S OVER. HOW DO YOU TURN THAT INTO AN INDUSTRY?
KP: Well this is part of the problem. I think this is typical problem for agriculture. Apart from production, you need to have storage facilities, and you need to have processing facilities. The time of harvest is quite limited as you mentioned, it’s a couple of weeks. Time of harvest, this window when you collect your plants, you can extend it by the selection of the right varieties, some early cultivars and late cultivars. This way you can spread your harvest time over a month, or maybe more than one month. But definitely you need to have a processing facility which is able to process large amounts of your fruit. Plus storage facilities, your freezers, mostly your freezers for processing the berries.
CC: AT THE COLLEGE YOU’RE IN THE PROCESS RIGHT NOW OF ACTUALLY SETTING UP A PROCESSING PLANT. WHAT WOULD BE THERE?
CC: Okay. We started building our center by building laboratories, because whatever you do, any process you do, you need to have the ability to test what you are doing. So you need to have analytical support for your activity. Right now we have very well equipped laboratories which are able to lots of analysis and evaluation of the plant material.
We have so-called micro-processing unit where we can produce a certain amount of material in say the 50 kilogram range. But right now we are building our big pilot plant where we will be able to produce tons of materials. So this pilot plant, its on the stage of finishing but its not finished yet. But it will be soon.
CC: THANK YOU VERY MUCH PAUL
KP: Thank you.
Dr. Paul Kolodziejczyk is the lead research scientist at the Olds College School of Innovation and head of the program called “New Products from Crops and Bioprocessing.”
FEATURED LINK: Olds College School of Innovation
FEATURED LINK: Alberta Ingenuity