Facilities

NCI's tiered auditorium seats 60 people and is capable of simultaneous language translation. The space hosts lecture sessions during NCI’s short courses and other events. It is equipped with three ceiling-hung projectors and retractable screens.

The NCI Instructional Laboratory is pivotal in providing an interactive experience to attendees at NCI’s short courses. It can be transformed with various processing, analytical, and other equipment to best suit the needs of the course. This lab is non-food grade, providing an ideal place for teaching and experimenting.

The NCI Pasta Processing Laboratory is a food safe space equipped to demonstrate the impact of raw materials and processing on end product quality for traditional pasta, ravioli and gluten-free pasta*. It is available for product development, process testing, and training. The pilot-scale equipment provides a scalable solution for pasta innovation.

The NCI Soy Foods Laboratory is a key part of our technical services, providing a fully food-grade space for developing, testing, and producing soy-based and plant-based foods. We specialize in a variety of products, including soymilk, tofu, natto, tempeh, miso, and plant-based beverages.

The Extrusion Laboratory is equipped with a Wenger TX-52 twin-screw extruder for demonstrating the impact of raw materials and processing conditions on the organoleptic, textural, and nutritional characteristics of these foods.

The NCI Baking Laboratory is a state-of-the-art facility dedicated to instructional use. Our lab supports a wide range of baked goods, including pan breads, tortillas, buns, artisan breads, cookies, cakes, and more.

The Analytical Laboratory is equipped to evaluate oilseeds, whole grain, milled products, and finished products in a quality control environment with an array of equipment and instruments.

The pilot-scale mill is capable of milling spring wheat, winter wheat, or durum wheat into refined flour, whole wheat flour, or semolina, respectively.  These products can be used for testing flour quality, baking/processing evaluation, and pasta quality evaluation.

NCI has full pilot-scale capability for oilseed extraction on a wide variety of crops. Our scientists can help you with analyzing oil content and quality, as well as produce defatted meal for human food applications or protein analysis.

Stone milling is one of the latest additions to our facilities at NCI. In line with our mission, we've embraced the growing trend of producing nutritionally rich stone-milled and whole grain flours. We are equipped with a 26-inch granite stone mill with a 100-pound capacity grain hopper, along with a controlled grain feeder and flour sifter.