Industry Solutions
For a Stronger Bioeconomy
Biobased Products
Applied research, product and process development, pilot-scale capabilities, pilot trials, demonstrations, and commercialization support.
Biogas
AURI supports the anaerobic digestion (AD) and renewable natural gas (RNG) industry by providing applied testing, pilot-scale capabilities, and project assessment services that inform design and investment decisions.
Coproducts
AURI partners with a range of entities to convert agricultural and food-system coproducts into higher-value products.
Food Ingredients
AURI’s efforts in this space include the development and processing of novel and emerging crops, sustainable protein ingredients, clean-label ingredients, food quality, shelf-life attributes, and regulatory guidance.
Scaling Food/Bev Businesses
AURI’s food team is poised to assist growth with its decades of experience in providing technical and business assistance to food entrepreneurs and businesses.
Looking Ahead
AURI is well-positioned to be a vital link across the supply chain. We strive to be nimble and energetic in ideation, while remaining realistic about what is feasible. A few examples of how we are looking forward:
BIOBASED PRODUCTS
Hemp — Key Crop for Minnesota
Building greater consistency, understanding the specifications needed for different applications, facilitating awareness of quality requirements for contract production, and improving processes to meet industry needs are all areas that need resources and advancement.
The hemp fiber market has the potential to support green building supplies, erosion control products, hydro-mulch, textiles, and many other advancements. AURI has a fiber decorticator at its Bioindustrial Innovation Center and has worked on multiple hemp fiber projects over the years to position us as a leader in this area.
Collaborating with the USDA and other industry leaders on new applied research would provide invaluable support to a burgeoning industrial hemp industry.
BIOGAS
Building Minnesota’s biogas future
Minnesota is at an important crossroads to secure its biogas future that can contribute to meeting its renewable energy goals.
With state funding, AURI has built a producer guide for those that have questions about anaerobic digestion and renewable natural gas, assembled an industry thought leader group to help chart a path for Minnesota’s future in biogas, has conducted multiple client projects, and attended conferences to proactively think about the impact of renewable natural gas for the Minnesota agriculture industry.
SCALING FOOD & BEVERAGE BUSINESSES
Co-manufacturing Opportunity for Cottage Food Businesses
Small and growing food businesses require support and infrastructure to cost-effectively create their products. AURI, along with key collaborators, is exploring novel approaches to comanufacturing and scale-up processing to find or develop a business model that can support smaller production runs for smaller-sized food businesses that wish to grow local and regional market opportunities.
The cottage food industry in Minnesota exploded with the passage of the Cottage Food Law. In 2015, roughly 400 entities registered, whereas in 2024, the number was around 11,000. While only a small percentage of registrants have intentions to scale their passion, meeting their needs along with servicing an already strong food industry creates many new challenges and opportunities. We continue to add new curated content to our artificial intelligence platform AVA (AURI’s Virtual Assistant), available to answer questions from the food community 24 hours / 7 days a week.
Additionally, AURI provides ongoing support, from shelf life to nutrition facts to packaging to scale-up ingredient formulations, to advance small food businesses across the state. Our overall goal is to help scale food businesses with key assets and knowledge here so they do not need to leave the state to access those resources to grow their businesses.
AURI has given us the ability to pursue projects and technologies outside of our core business. They are our go-to group that helps us develop byproduct streams into additional value-added products. Their experience and network in Minnesota has enabled us to reach further outside our locale to new markets, ideas and customers.
Aaron Bjerke, American Crystal Sugar
AURI research is an invaluable tool for startups like mine.
Mark Porisch, Lucky’s Popcorn Dressing
As a small food entrepreneur in Minnesota, all I can say is that AURI is your best partner. They help you by providing technical and non-technical guidance. AURI’s staff is amazing and they go out of their way to help their clients succeed.
Sunil Kumar, The Amazing Chickpea
AURI has been a vital resource in the development of our product. AURI has helped us with nutritional labeling, shelf stability and also developing a market or researching other uses for our byproducts. AURI believes in you, not just your product, and they are always willing to share your story with others they think will also be a source of product advancement.
Jenni Smude, CEO of Funtimes
AURI’s services cannot have a dollar value placed on them…When I tell people I worked with AURI for product development, they have a stronger sense of security in working with me. I am not sure I could have continued without them. This is the kind of government program that should be expanded because this is the kind of program that does nothing but good.
Katie Sanchez, RAES Foods, Inc./Bee Free Honee
Growan Energy is very grateful for the partnership with AURI. The partnership has allowed us to move our innovative biodiesel technology toward commercialization faster than we could have done on our own…..It has been a very valuable partnership, and we hope the relationship will continue.
Jerad Poling, Growan Energy
We are in business today for one reason—all of the help we’ve received. Without AURI, I don’t know where we would be today. We just had an idea; AURI made it possible.
Darryl Metcalfe, USA Solutions
AURI helped us get through the economic downturn; we didn’t have to stop our development because of AURI.
Gary Noble, Bio-Plastic Solutions
AURI’s involvement from start to finish was invaluable. This is a project I know we could never have undertaken on our own.
John Peterson, Ferndale Market
What I found out from AURI in a week would have taken me a year on my own.
Steve Olds, Steve’s Pepper Sauce
We learned, with the assistance of AURI, the best-case scenario for developing our new business in terms of the optimum manufacturing process, setup and implementation.
Eric Kriedemacher, Alternative Energy Solutions
The process of taking a “good idea,” to developing a great product, to selling at retail is a very time-consuming process. AURI’s staff and resources assisted with most stages of development including: R&D, market development and technical analysis required for our new facility.
Rob Fuglie, Fergus Foods
We saved a handful of jobs. We weren’t going to be able to keep on the way we were…we needed a certain volume of business to keep the doors open. A big thank you to AURI for helping us accomplish that.
Glenn Rivard, Rivard’s Quality Seeds, Inc.
AURI has contributed to the success of our branded line, Kay’s Naturals, in achieving nationwide distribution of our products through its marketing grants and by analyzing product for nutritional data, as well as opportunities to demonstrate our products to the public. Most importantly, we have been treated with respect as a contributing member of the Minnesota ag business community and received tremendous encouragement from AURI.
Ann Jones Kazemzadeh, Kay’s Naturals Inc.
AURI researchers think outside the box very well, and their exposure to a wide variety of agricultural-related industries gives them both a depth and breadth of knowledge that is valuable to utilize.
Vincent Copa, Chippewa Valley Ethanol Company
At the time of our first meeting with AURI, we had nothing but an idea and some brief conversations with pelleting industry people…AURI helped us through the discovery phase of technology testing, formulation optimization and commercialization testing. We would not be at the stage of development we are without AURI.
Brian Caldwell, American BioLabs
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