Fresh, sweet, juicy pineapple slices — yum. Fresh, sweet, juicy pineapple slices with li hing — yummier. Some love a bit of pineapple on pizza. Others like it delivered in cake form.

But at the Culinary Innovation Center at Kapiolani Community College, Lauren Tamamoto looks at the fruit through a different lens. Consider her experiments with pineapple core, a part of the fruit often discarded, that she’s working on for Maui Gold Pineapple Co. So far, she has tested various incarnations of gemlike fruit morsels made with a freeze-dryer. One batch was too tough, another lost its yellow hue. The trials went on and on. Finally, the latest version is just right.

Other possibilities: a pineapple shrub (a drinking vinegar for mixing with alcohol, sparkling soda or the like), and granola made with okara (soy pulp, a byproduct of making tofu), studded with pineapple core tidbits.

Tamamoto runs the center, where new products are created with food items that would otherwise go to waste, and existing products are tested and analyzed — all for free, at least through early spring. It’s also a place where the school’s culinary students can participate in these projects.

The center is a resource for Oahu farmers, small businesses and others interested in developing products, such as the Wahiawa Community Based Development Organization, a business development group that approached the center to create products using items grown on area farms. The ideas generated would help farmers make use of their B-grade and surplus produce. Since many farmers surrounding Wahiawa grow an array of Chinese cabbages, Tamamoto so far has developed a base recipe for chutney/relish that makes use of a variety of those veggies.

Hawai‘i ‘Ulu Producers Cooperative tapped the center to help determine the best method to freeze its sliced and processed breadfruit. Part of that assignment involved determining the proper bag thickness for maintaining quality and stability of the product.

In fact, much of the center’s work involves troubleshooting. It performs “sensory evaluations,” a fancy term for taste testing, and figures out how to scale up production. It also determines how to improve food safety or make an item more shelf-stable, using processes such as heat, freezing, refrigeration, packaging and more to inhibit microbial growth.

OnoPops, a company that makes local frozen treats, needed yet another service: nutritional analyses for each flavor. Co-owner Josh Lanthier- Welch said he was pleased with the center’s expertise.

“They asked me questions about how the products were made to make sure the customer got the right information. They’re so skilled at what they do,” he said.

“The center is what we need to grow value- added food production to save our ag industry. They’re absolutely crucial to the education of KCC students and to our food industry. They’re doing important work.”

A federal grant from the Department of Labor allows the center to provide these services for free. Tamamoto says the center will likely begin charging a small fee when the grant runs out after March.

Though the center is not specifically dedicated to academic endeavors, it is tied to a four-year degree program — food science and human nutrition, with a specialty in culinology (a blending of food science and the culinary arts) — that starts at KCC and continues at the University of Hawaii at Manoa. The degree, which begins with a two-year degree in institutional food service management from KCC, prepares students for careers as research chefs or in culinary product development.

The degree requires 300 hours of hands-on work related to research and development through internships, a job or volunteering at the center. It also requires 300 hours in culinary arts.

Last year Tamamoto introduced a class in food innovation at KCC.

“I want to broaden students’ ideas of food industry careers,” she said. “To get more of them interested, we tour food businesses, see food manufacturers. The class is symbiotic with the center.”

As volunteers, students use skills learned in culinary classes to take part in developing products not just for the community, but for the school as well.

One such project was a line of spice blends utilizing local pineapple core and papaya seeds, developed by students for a program that visits Washington, D.C., where it served as an example of innovation in Hawaii. Another success: Butter Mochi Crisps, a sweet, baked, gluten-free snack that’s growing in popularity. Such items are test-marketed at food venues on campus and the KCC farmers market, and generate funds for the school’s culinary program.

Students find Tamamoto’s work eye-opening.

“When you go through the whole (culinary) program, you see Lauren’s stuff and it’s totally different,” said Dexter Yamamoto, who graduated in December. “She doesn’t talk about the stuff chefs usually talk about. It’s not how to take a plant and cook it, but how long will something be shelf-stable? We also test packaging. We tried five samples of ulu and thought it was a taste test, but it was a package test. It opens up the mind.”

Student Steven Lee, who enrolled in the culinary program after a career as a quality analyst in a call center, is aiming for the culinology degree.

“I like cooking for people; that’s why I’m in this field. I want to know how to make food better and the science behind it,” he said. “I love the food part and I love the spreadsheet part. This degree will merge (those interests).”

Tamamoto came to the college after working at Frito-Lay as a food scientist. She said there’s a lot to love about her work.

“I kinda lucked out,” she said. “I like being busy and doing different things. I don’t like the same old same-old everyday. I like to interact with students and help them develop their food-science knowledge. I like to work with the chefs; there’s so much combined experience here. I like that I get to play with equipment like the freeze-dryer. It’s like my playground.”

More important, Tamamoto said, she and other colleagues hope they’re contributing to the start of a new industry in Hawaii.

“We hope to inspire the next generation to go into food manufacturing. We think this may be the start of it — we’re really optimistic. We’re doing our little steps and it just takes time. Hopefully, we can keep (talent) here in Hawaii.”

Student Contest:

King’s Hawaiian, the company that produces Hawaii-style sweet bread, has designed a recipe development contest specifically for Kapiolani Community College culinary students. Top prize for the contest, to be held in April, is a paid summer internship with the company; other winners will receive cash awards. Winning recipes will be considered for King’s e-commerce site.

For information on the Culinary Innovation Center, call 734-9593 or email cicenter@hawaii.edu.