APC TEST KITCHEN & INNOVATION CENTER
At American Pasteurization Company (APC), our Innovation Center and commercial test kitchen in Milwaukee is designed to help brands accelerate food product development, validate packaging, and extend shelf life, all using high pressure processing (HPP).
This specialized facility merges advanced culinary tools with industry-leading HPP technology, giving you a collaborative, real-time space to test and refine formulations, packaging, and final products.
When product development and HPP take place in separate facilities, you prepare samples, ship them to an HPP provider, wait for results, and make adjustments before starting again. Each round can take weeks.
At APC’s Innovation Center, development, HPP processing, and product assessment happen in one location. Whether you’re developing an original product, expanding a product line, or refining an existing formulation, you can prepare samples, run them through high pressure processing, and evaluate taste, texture, and color the same day. Packaging is tested alongside the formulation to confirm that materials withstand HPP without compromising seal integrity, structure, or appearance.
With immediate feedback and no need to ship samples between facilities, you can make adjustments and retest sooner, shortening development cycles from months to days.
Bring your chefs, food scientists, or R&D team, or collaborate with ours. Our dedicated food safety and QA team supports:
Our experts guide you through complex packaging, formulation, and safety challenges.
Shelf life is a tested, validated outcome specific to your product, your formulation, and your HPP parameters. APC coordinates with your choice of accredited third-party laboratories to design and execute:
Having HPP on-site during this process means parameters can be adjusted and retested without the delays of external processing coordination.
Identifying and correcting packaging issues early helps prevent costly delays, product recalls, and potential damage to your brand’s reputation.
Packaging failure under HPP is one of the most common causes of delayed product launches. Seal failures, material degradation, and structural compromise under 87,000 psi of hydrostatic pressure are routine findings.
Finding a packaging incompatibility during a pilot run costs a fraction of discovering it after commercial production has begun.
What gets evaluated:
Material flexibility and structural durability post-process
Visual appeal after high-pressure treatment
Label integrity: confirming that colors do not bleed and labels do not shift or peel away from the package
Compatibility across packaging formats: pouches, rigid containers, and induction-sealed formats
APC’s samples program lets brands test how their products and packaging perform under HPP before committing to commercial production. Customers may send samples manufactured at their own facility or by another producer.
Working alongside QA and our food safety team, our sample specialists document all pertinent details about the product, apply HPP at the specified pressure and hold time, and assess packaging suitability and strength. Labels are also evaluated when applicable.
After HPP, samples follow one of two paths:
Customer evaluation: Samples are returned for assessment of taste, texture, color, and structure.
Laboratory testing: Samples are sent to the customer’s selected laboratory for refrigerated shelf-life studies, pathogen testing, or challenge studies.
Samples travel in appropriate cold packaging by overnight delivery or laboratory courier. The path of every product is documented to the hour, providing a record from production or arrival through HPP and laboratory receipt.
Customers arrange laboratory testing directly. APC provides referrals, and our sample specialists and QA team work with the selected lab on sample handling, documentation, and APC’s HACCP requirements.
The facility is used by brands at every stage, from founders developing a first SKU to established CPG teams reformulating existing products for clean-label ingredient profiles or new retail channels.
Work done in the Innovation Center translates directly to APC’s full-scale manufacturing and high pressure processing operations. Formulations, packaging specs, HACCP parameters, and shelf-life data developed during pilot runs carry forward into commercial production without revalidation from scratch.
Having development and production under one roof, backed by over two decades of integrated HPP and manufacturing experience, makes that continuity possible.
APC’s Innovation Center consolidates product and packaging development into one streamlined process. We help you bring better products to market faster.
