NEWS RELEASE
NIAGARA COLLEGE
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Thanks to Niagara College’s Research and Innovation division, St. Catharines-based Dispatch has turned an in-demand beverage into a commercial product with expanding reach.
Dispatch’s coffee lemonade ‘Mazagran Coffee’ is now popping up in cans at various locations in the Niagara region and beyond.
Mazagran is an iced coffee which originated in Algeria as early as the 1700s and, over time, became a staple in other countries, including Spain and Portugal. The original version was simply a strong coffee diluted with water and ice – lemon was added after its introduction to Paris.
Dispatch’s sparkling version of Mazagran Coffee offers a bold, refreshing, unexpected combination of coffee and lemon, balancing the richness of chocolate from the coffee, the complex sweetness of agave, and the bright, rounded acidity of fresh lemon juice and zest.
Dispatch staff turned to the College’s Food and Beverage Innovation Centre (FBIC) over a year ago with an interest in making the beverage available for broader consumption to meet customer demand.
Dispatch General Manager Michael Kapusty said they approached FBIC hoping to source better ingredients, improve the recipe, and make the product ‘shelf stable.’ They knew FBIC had the expertise and equipment to make it happen.
“The FBIC team improved the recipe, making the product shelf stable and scalable,” said Kapusty. “Then we were able to get initial market traction on our new product and bridge the gap to a commercial scale co-packer.”
One of four key innovation centres within NC’s award-winning Research and Innovation division, FBIC provides solutions for local small- and medium-sized enterprises to help them survive and thrive.
“This is just one of many examples of the exceptional benefit that college-based applied research and development innovation centres bring to our communities,” said Lyndon Ashton, Associate Director, FBIC. “We’re industry-facing and focused on helping our clients transform their concepts into commercially viable products that can be manufactured at scale successfully – all while training the next generation of talent through knowledge exchange and capacity building hand-in-glove with our industry partners.”
“At FBIC, we helped the industry partner simplify the processing to minimize production costs as well as we provided ingredients and formulation recommendations to enable the scale up of the novel product,” said Ana Cristina Vega-Lugo, PhD, Scientific Manager, FBIC.
Vega-Lugo led the FBIC team in optimizing the ready-to-drink beverage. The team completed a scaled-up trial at its on-campus Hazard Analysis Critical Control Point (HACCP)-certified pilot plant, evaluated carbonation levels and Dispatch chose its preferential texture.
Food safety assessments were conducted for each formulation and the team evaluated the proposed heat treatment to ensure that the final preservative-free product would be safe and free from microbial contamination when it became available in the market.
More than 800 cans of the product in 200-litre batches were produced using the FBIC’s HACCP-certified pilot plant.
The final product sold out very quickly, pointing to a need to ramp up the scale of production. The FBIC team connected Dispatch with a new co-packer with the equipment, storage capacity and logistics capabilities required to make an even bigger impact in the market.
After tapping into the expertise of NC’s FBIC, Dispatch gained a research-backed product which became an additional revenue stream to its business.
The increased production is opening doors to new possibilities for Mazagran Coffee. Dispatch is now working with small cafes, restaurants, and local grocers, as well as larger entities such as hotel groups.
Mazagran is now available in St. Catharines (Wandering Spirits, Mahtay Café and Lounge, 13th Street Winery, Frontier Barbers and Company, King Street Pantry), Fonthill (Stoke Deli Bar, doorFore), Niagara-on-the-Lake (Sweetwater Group) and in Kitchener (Odd Duck). Kapusty also expects that Mazagran will become available at a major local retailer this spring.
“Without FBIC’s product development and pilot plant expertise, we wouldn’t be where we are today,” said Kapusty.
With Dispatch now closing its doors at the end of March, Mazagran Coffee will be the focus of the business as it transitions into an independent brand, with a full rebrand coming in 2025.
The Mazagran Coffee project for Dispatch created opportunities for NC students who had a chance to gain experience while working on a real industry research project.
FBIC Research Assistant Liliana Miranda Gomez, a third-year Culinary Innovation and Food Technology student, helped select ingredients to achieve the client’s desired flavour profile and played a key role in preliminary formulations.
Gomez relocated from Bogota, Colombia to St. Catharines in fall 2022 to pursue her passion for organic food production at NC, building on her background in chemical engineering and bridging her scientific expertise with food innovation. She focused on perfecting the product’s flavour profile to achieve the client’s intended sensory experience and adjusted to ensure the product’s safety and high quality, under the guidance of the FBIC’s Scientific Manager.
“I truly enjoyed the experimental process in the lab – creating different versions, testing flavours, and refining the final product,” she said. “Leveraging my knowledge and love for these flavours allowed me to contribute meaningfully to the product's development, ensuring innovation, food safety, and quality in the final outcome.”
She found it rewarding to be a part of the project from start to finish and witness its strong market acceptance.
“Hearing positive feedback from the public and knowing that our work contributed to a successful launch by Dispatch, filled me with immense pride and gratitude toward FBIC for allowing me to develop my skills as a product developer,” she said.
This project is just one example of how NC’s Research and Innovation division is helping local small- and medium-sized enterprises (SMEs) survive and thrive through project activities in its four key innovation centres: FBIC; the Business and Commercialization Innovation Centre (BCIC); the Horticultural and Environmental Sciences Innovation Centre (HESIC) at the DJP Campus in Niagara-on-the-Lake; and the Walker Advanced Manufacturing Innovation Centre (WAMIC) at the Welland Campus.
Partnering with the College’s Research and Innovation division, SMEs connect with highly qualified and experienced staff, researchers, faculty, recent graduates, and students with the expertise to meet their applied research and innovation needs, while the College’s student research assistants gain valuable experience working alongside expert staff and faculty on real projects for industry partners.
In December 2024, NC was ranked the No. 1 college in Canada for research funding, according to Research Infosource Inc.’s report Canada’s Top 50 Research Colleges, based on total research funding numbers from 2023. It was the second consecutive year that NC secured the top ranking and the tenth year in a row it placed within the top 10. The No. 1 ranking was earned by attracting more than $40 million in research support to conduct projects with industry partners. NC also ranked No. 2 for completed research projects at a mid-size college with a total of 178.
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