Halifax’s Infusd Nutrition is the only Atlantic Canadian startup out of eight companies to be accepted into this year’s cohort of the federal Trade Commissioner’s Canadian Technology Accelerator for foodtech.

The four-month program offers innovative food companies training and business development opportunities focusing on exporting to a target region — in the case of the foodtech program California and the Upper Midwest.

Topics covered by the training will include local market conditions in the U.S., the regulatory landscape, taxation and other subjects, along with personalized mentorship. In order to participate, companies must either have raised a seed-stage or Series A funding round, or be planning to do so within the year.

Infusd was founded by lawyer Jack MacDonald and chemical engineer David Giffin, and based on intellectual property developed over the last five years at post-secondary institutions such as Dalhousie University. It has developed a process to make fat-soluble nutrients, such as omega-3 fatty acids and many vitamins, water soluble.

That breakthrough makes it possible for the companies that manufacture ingredients for beverages like sports drinks to augment their products' nutritional contents. The process can also be used to dissolve natural colouring and flavouring agents, which tend to be fat-based and are prone to separating from beverages.

Infusd will sell its technology under a licensing model, adapting its processes to match the needs of ingredient producers at its research and development facility in Windsor, N.S. 

South of the border, meanwhile, MacDonald and Giffin are pursuing a second revenue stream: producing their own ingredients with the help of a co-manufacturing facility in upstate New York as part of a plan that could include working with the cannabis industry.