MARTIN, Tenn. – The University of Tennessee at Martin received a Research Facilities Act Program grant from the National Institute of Food and Agriculture to build a cold food processing facility within the university’s Tennessee Entrepreneurial Science and Technology (TEST) Hub, which began construction last April.
Funded by the Tennessee General Assembly in 2022, the TEST Hub is a $19 million facility that will combine educational facilities, entrepreneurial centers and manufacturing workshops surrounding a shared industrial makerspace on the UT Martin campus.
The Research Facilities Act Program, or RFAP, is designed to provide financial assistance to qualifying institutions for the construction, modernization, renovation or remodeling of agricultural research facilities to conduct research in the fields of food and agricultural sciences.
UT Martin received close to $400,000 in grant funding along with matching funds to help build a cold food processing facility within the TEST Hub, totaling about $1 million in funding for the facility.
The grant was made available through the National Institute for Food and Agriculture, an agency within the U.S. Department of Agriculture.
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