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GFIC Ice Cream and Frozen Desserts

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Develop Ice Cream and Frozen Desserts with Confidence

Bring High-Value Products to Market Faster

Ice cream innovation at the University of Guelph began as early as 1914, which has continued to be an active field of research at the university ever since. Drawing on this knowledge, GFIC develops tailored solutions that improve the quality, functionality, and cost-effectiveness of ice cream and frozen desserts.

Partner with our expert innovation team to transform your ideas into shelf-ready frozen products. Using scientific, consumer, and industry insights, we support every stage, from concept to commercial production.

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Who We Serve

Entrepreneurs, Small & Medium Companies

Developing a frozen product can be costly and complex—especially without access to specialized equipment. At GFIC, you can:

  • Create and refine frozen dessert formulations without investing in expensive freezing or pasteurization equipment.
  • Produce high-quality samples for market testing, investors, retailers, or early product launches.
  • Run small pilot batches to evaluate texture, overrun, stability, melt behaviour, and consumer acceptance before scaling up.

We work closely with founders to ensure each formulation is safe, stable, and technically feasible for commercial manufacturing.

Large Food & Beverage Companies

Established manufacturers often lack small-scale, flexible environments to trial new concepts. GFIC provides a dedicated pilot space ideal for:

  • Testing new flavours, inclusions, ripples, or formulation changes without interrupting commercial production lines.
  • Conducting scale-down trials to troubleshoot issues before making costly adjustments at full scale.
  • Validating process conditions, overrun targets, mix behaviour, and ingredient performance under pilot-scale conditions.
  • Accessing technical support from experts who understand industrial ice cream manufacturing.

This allows companies to innovate more efficiently, without reallocating plant resources or reconfiguring equipment for small test runs.

Our Services

  • Research & development
  • Concept ideation & product development
  • Pilot trials & product evaluation
  • Small-scale manufacturing
  • Custom inclusions, ripples, & molding
  • Support for line extensions & novel innovations

We specialize in high-impact formulations, including:

Plant-based | Clean label | Keto | Low sugar | Low fat

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Additional Services

We offer flexible, efficient, and cost-effective processing at low minimum order quantities, customized to your scale and goals. Additional services available in our OMAFA-certified dairy pilot plant include:

  • Use of continuous freezer, hardening room, and Videojet date coder
  • Microbial testing of finished product
  • Frozen storage post-production

Capabilities & Equipment

Pasteurization (HTST & Batch)

  • MicroThermics 25DH pilot-scale HTST system
  • Qualtech commercial-scale HTST pasteurizer
  • 200 L steam-jacketed batch pasteurizer

Homogenization

  • Pilot-scale 2-stage homogenizer (APV Gaulin)
  • Commercial-scale 2-stage homogenizer

Freezing

  • Batch freezer (Taylor 104)
  • Soft-serve freezer (Taylor 794)
  • Continuous freezer (Tetra Pak S 700 A2.0)

Mixing

  • Jacketed mixing tanks (total capacity 1200 L)

Specialty Features

  • Ripple pump
  • Inclusion feeder
  • Hardening room (-30°C)
  • Wet milling

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At the Forefront of Ice Cream Research and Production

Accelerate your ice cream development with GFIC’s advanced R&D and production expertise. Together, we’ll transform your ideas into high-quality frozen products ready for market success.

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88 McGilvray St.
Guelph, Ontario, Canada N1G 1Y2

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