PSG Food Processing Centre

Decide what you need first

• Trial a recipe or process: ask about pilot-scale equipment access for formulation trials, process optimisation and scale-up.
• Product development or market testing help: ask about its consultancy.
• Food safety training for your team: ask about the FSSAI FoSTaC levels (awareness, basic, advanced).
• Skills for yourself or an SHG: ask about the one-day to two-week short-term courses.

How to approach

• The centre publishes no application form or deadline. Call the centre on its listed phone number and say which product, which equipment and how many trial batches you have in mind.
• Be specific about your product category. Its lines cover fruit products, beverages, pickles, dehydrated vegetables, dairy and ready-mix foods.
• Ask what the nominal charges for equipment access cover, and whether incubation support is open to founders who are not enrolled at the college.

Before you call

• Have your FSSAI licence status clear, or ask how the centre's own licence applies to trial runs.
• Bring a one-page product brief: ingredients, target shelf life, pack format and expected volumes.
• Ask if your trial output can be sold or only used for testing.

PSG Food Processing Centre (PSG-FPC) is a food processing research, training and business incubation centre in Coimbatore, Tamil Nadu. It sits inside PSG College of Arts & Science and was established in 2011 with partial funding from the Ministry of Food Processing Industries (MoFPI), Government of India. It is licensed by the Food Safety and Standards Authority of India (FSSAI).

What it offers a food founder

PSG-FPC works as a research and development cum incubation centre. Its stated aim is to create entrepreneurs in the food processing sector through business incubation. The centre lists four kinds of help: business incubation, product development, technical consultancy and training.

The most practical offer is access to its pilot-scale equipment. Founders can use it for formulation trials, process optimisation and scale-up studies, and the centre says this access is provided at nominal charges. That means you can test a recipe or a shelf-life idea on real processing lines before you spend on your own plant. The centre also offers consultancy in product development and market testing, and takes on collaborative research through public-private partnerships.

Facilities

The centre has three distinct processing areas. Pre-processing covers fruit receiving, washing, grading, slicing and blanching. Processing covers thermal processing, pasteurisation, dehydration, retort processing and product formulation. Packaging covers bottling, pouching, canning, vacuum packaging, sealing, labelling and batch coding.

Named equipment includes a fruit washer, grader, slicer and blancher, a juicer, hydraulic press and pulper, a steam jacketed kettle, pasteurisers, a cabinet drier and a fluidised bed drier. There is a homogeniser and dairy processing units, a retort and autoclave, and vacuum and shrink packaging machines. Support systems include a steam boiler, an air compressor, an RO plant, a chilling unit, cold storage and a deep freezer.

Products it works on

The centre's product lines cover fruit jams, jellies, preserves and sauces, fruit and coconut-based beverages, amla juice, pickles, dehydrated vegetables, pasteurised and flavoured milk, paneer, instant mixes, masala and health mix powders, cookies and cakes, and ready-to-eat foods. If your product sits in fruit, vegetable, dairy, beverage or ready-mix food, it is a close fit.

Training and courses

PSG-FPC trains entrepreneurs in food processing, preservation and value addition. Short-term programmes run from one day to two weeks and are open to SHGs, farmers, NGOs and entrepreneurs. It is an FSSAI FoSTaC training partner (since Nov 2023), with awareness, basic and advanced levels and food safety supervisor certification. For students it runs an M.Sc. in Food Technology Management, a B.Voc. in Food Processing Technology and a Diploma in Post-Harvest Technology (10 months).

Who has used it

The centre names 26 industries, entrepreneurs and academic institutions that have used its facilities for research and development, product innovation and training. They include Madhura Agro Process Pvt. Ltd., Synthite Industries Pvt. Ltd. in Kerala, Famis Spice in Pollachi, VSA Beverages Pvt. Ltd. in Dindigul and Mega Foods Products Madras Pvt. Ltd. in Chennai. These are users of the facilities, not a list of incubated startups.

What to know before you approach

The centre's page gives no application form, intake dates, selection rules, fee schedule or equity terms. Treat it as a facility and incubation centre you contact directly, not a cohort programme with a deadline. The only contact route on its page is a phone line at the centre.