…an alpine-style specialty cheese, developed and produced by Oregon State University students using milk from the university’s dairy herd. It has a subtle, nutty flavor with creamy, buttery and caramelized notes.

Beaver Classic Cheese

It made it’s debut at the September 8th football game and is being sold prior to all home football games. Can’t make it to a game? No worries, it is now available online for purchase! The Beaver Classic Cheese may also be purchased at the Department of Food Science and Technology, in Room 108 of Wiegand Fall from 11:00am-1:00pm on Fridays.

Go Beavs!

-AG

The researchers at the OSU Seafood Research Laboratory are hard at work finding a solution, according to the Daily Astorian:

A shortage of Alaskan pollock and other white-fleshed fish from around the globe has created a supply crisis among manufacturers of surimi, the processed fish protein used to make imitation crab and other shellfish-flavored products.

Jae Park, a professor at Oregon State University’s Seafood Laboratory in Astoria, is working with fellow researchers to find a solution.

Surimi prices have more than doubled in the last two years, according to Park, surimi researcher and consultant to the surimi products industry.

“Fish landings around the world are down, and some seafood processors also are choosing to produce more pollock fillets – especially for the European market – instead of supplying raw material for the manufacture of surimi,” Park said. “This crisis is not going to go away soon. Even if the U.S. pollock situation gets better next year, fish landings of warm-water species in Southeast Asia are down almost 40 percent from five years ago.”

In all seriousness, Krab and other imitation derivatives of Surimi are very important for the food supply because they are great sources of inexpensive protein.

OSU has a huge research and education base in the food sciences: Food Science and Technology, Nutrition, the previously mentioned Seafood Research Laboratory and the OSU Food Innovation Center

-jm

As an economics junkie I was thrilled to read this recently released study on Oregon State University’s economic footprint. OSU’s economic footprint is around 1.5 billion dollars. This is huge news not only for OSU but for the State of Oregon as well! OSU is the state’s only university designated as having “Very High Research Activity” by the Carnegie Foundation.

I won’t put you to sleep with a lecture on economic impact and multipliers; just know that OSU with its Extension Services in every county, Hatfield Marine Science Center, multidisciplinary Spring Creek Project, Food Innovation Center, other research programs and special centers too numerous to name and of course the contribution of educated folks who are tomorrow’s (and today’s) engineers, doctors, artists, farmers and public servants…Makes a huge impact on every day life of Oregonians.

From the Impact Report:

Over the years, additional federal designations have been added for Sea Grant, Space Grant and Sun Grant institutions. Other than Cornell, OSU is the only university in America to hold all four – a distinction that provides real value for the 19,700 students (more than 80 percent of whom are Oregonians) who call OSU home.

That means, in part, that Oregon State has one of the broadest, most diverse research programs in the nation. This breadth is so wide-ranging, in fact, that OSU is the only Oregon campus to have earned the Carnegie Foundation’s premier designation, reserved for campuses that have “very high research activity.”

Behind those designations lie strengths in such areas as forestry, marine science, nanoscience and microtechnology, agricultural sciences, history, public health, veterinary medicine, creative writing, conservation biology, entrepreneurship and more.

The university has grown dramatically: Beaver alumni living around the world now number nearly 150,000. But OSU has never lost sight of its original mission. Making its intellectual resources available to students from Oregon and beyond will always be OSU’s primary focus.

This kind of news is exciting for a Land Grant Institution such as OSU because one of our key missions is to improve the state, country and world we live in. In my opinion the Land Grant mission creates a very unique energy on our campus. The learning, teaching and research are of course focused in the traditional ways but with a sense of service to our community.

Read the full report here (click)! Thirsty for more info on OSU’s research and innovation? Check out TERRA, OSU’s Research Magazine.

That’s it for now, folks. Thanks for reading. Questions, concerns or discussion? Comment away!

Stay real and BE WELL,

-jm