Center for Excellence in Post-Harvest Technologies

Health science increasingly sees optimal nutrition – particularly nutrition from fruits and vegetables – as the answer to robust health, longevity and disease prevention. Genomics and modern biotechnology make it possible to harness the power of foods to prevent and even treat disease. These advances have made nutrition research one of the most important new frontiers in human health.

The Center for Excellence in Post-Harvest Technologies (CEPHT) plays a vital role in this quest. Here, we discover health-enhancing ways to process fruits and vegetables. We add value to agricultural commmodities by finding new ways to make food safer, extend shelf life and preserve health-promoting nutrients. We work with our North Carolina Research Campus partners to expand into diverse areas such as nutrigenomics and metabolomics. And we forge partnerships with industry to create health enriching foods or supplements, and spur economic development in North Carolina.

Our strengths

Research

The Center for Excellence in Post-Harvest Technologies fosters interdisciplinary research in post-harvest technologies, including:
• Developing and testing functional foods.
• Isolating and characterizing the health-promoting components in foods.
• Improving processes to extend shelf life, and control spoilage and food-borne pathogens.
•Developing new, value-added products from agricultural commodities.
• Evaluating and modeling consumer acceptance of food products.
• Developing and testing novel biodegradable and bioactive food packaging.
• Optimizing parameters for process-engineering.

Learning Through Experience

CEPHT provides unique opportunities for experiential education of young scientists in cutting-edge technologies and applied post-harvest research.

Outreach

CEPHT seeks science-based solutions to post-harvest issues facing growers, food processors, distributors and consumers. We provide seminars, short courses, workshops, and educational materials that respond to the needs of growers, and food processing and packing industries.

Analytical, advisory and contractual services

With our advanced tools, facilities and personnel, CEPHT is prepared to help producers, processors, distributors and retailers with all aspects of post-harvest processing, including packaging, consumer research, analysis of food components, and development of new food products.

Our Role

The Center for Excellence in Post-Harvest Technologies is a key partner at the North Carolina Research Campus – a $1.5 billion world-class biopolis dedicated to making breakthrough discoveries in nutrition and human health. CEPHT is administered by the School of Agriculture and Environmental Sciences at North Carolina Agricultural and Technical State University in Greensboro, N.C. We extend N.C. A&T’s land-grant mission of learning, outreach and research to improve education, the state’s economy and the health of humanity.

The Center for Excellence in Post-Harvest Technologies is on the fourth floor of the Nutrition Research Building at the North Carolina Research Campus in Kannapolis, N.C.