(04/21/26) BATON ROUGE, La . — For more than a decade, the LSU AgCenter Food Innovation Institute (FOODii) has provided technical and marketing assistance to help dozens of food-focused entrepreneurs move their dreams to grocery store shelves.

FOODii is a resource center that connects food-based startups with industrial kitchens and packing machinery along with access to food scientists, nutrition experts and marketing advice.

The faculty and staff behind the institute have the potential to accomplish even more, said Amogh Ambardekar, who joined the AgCenter as the new FOODii director earlier this month.

“What they have done is phenomenal,” he said. “The teams before me, they have brought FOODii to this level and set a baseline for someone who wants their own startup. FOODii has been a launch pad.”

Ambardekar, a food scientist with more than a decade of experience developing food products and processes for worldwide brands and corporations such as Burger King, Mars Inc. and Nestle Purina, envisions FOODii as an innovation hub in addition to a business incubator. He sees a future where FOODii scientists develop creative uses for Louisiana agricultural products by helping to reduce waste of underutilized materials through value addition while also creating ingenious functional ingredients for local and national food industries.

“We will be able to leverage our AgCenter faculty research and expertise as well as the space we have to develop technology to develop not only a proof of concept but actually make a minimum viable product that is scalable” he said.

Growing up in Ratnagiri, India, on the Arabian Sea, Ambardekar became fascinated by the varied fish species he saw at local fish markets. That curiosity led him to study marine biology in college and learn about fish processing and aquaculture.

In 2001, he arrived in Baton Rouge to study fisheries at the LSU School of Renewable Natural Resources, where he focused on nutrition in aquaculture. Ambardekar earned a doctorate in food science at Oklahoma State University and then became a postdoctoral researcher at the University of Arkansas rice research program.

Working with rice cultivar quality led Ambardekar to a position with Mars, which markets a popular parboiled, quick-cook rice. For the next 15 years, Ambardekar broadened his expertise in ingredient, product and process development in various sectors of the food industry. Later, he focused on connecting quick-service restaurants with ingredient suppliers to innovate restaurants’ value meal options in national and global markets.

“Each aspect of that experience provides a perspective for the Food Innovation Institute when tenants work with us,” Ambardekar said. “It requires understanding all the way from procurement of raw materials to product formulation, design and scale until (the product is) launched or sold. I’m not going to call myself a subject matter expert in everything, but there are technical areas I am an expert in, and there are commercial areas I understand very well to be supportive of stakeholder needs.”

Faculty in the AgCenter School of Nutrition and Food Sciences agree that Ambardekar’s experience and expertise will serve to advance the mission of FOODii.

“We are delighted that Dr. Ambardekar has chosen to join us as a faculty member in the School of Nutrition and Food Sciences and look forward to helping him take FOODii to the next level of excellence and innovation,” said Georgianna Tuuri, the Ann Armstrong Peltier Professor in Dietetics and chair of the School of Nutrition and Food Sciences.

At a time when food companies are working to increase fiber, protein and other nutrients in foods, many exciting pathways lie ahead for food scientists, Ambardekar said. New technologies — such as intelligent packaging, precision fermentation or nonthermal processing — can create novel, nutritious, functional and safe ingredients or develop innovative methods that could allow scientists to harness natural flavors and colors and break new ground.

“That’s a mindset shift,” Ambardekar said. “To do that, the companies are going to have to try new, innovative techniques to produce these kinds of foods. We will support corporate innovation partners in those areas by proving concepts, developing prototypes and creating a viable commercial product at a pilot scale.”

While FOODii will seek to innovate and create new opportunities to grow the Louisiana food industry, Ambardekar said the institute will not lose sight of its original mission of helping Louisianans perfect and market families’ recipes and entrepreneurs’ creations.

“We really want to make sure that we support those aspects of FOODii because Louisiana has a very unique culture,” he said. “We want to support that.”

Amogh Ambardekar joined the LSU AgCenter in April as the new AgCenter Food Innovation Institute (FOODii) director. Ambardekar envisions a future where FOODii is an innovation hub as well as a business incubator. Photo by Kyle Peveto/LSU AgCenter