GREENFIELD — More products and facility upgrades will be coming to the Western Massachusetts Food Processing Center, as the Franklin County Community Development Corporation has reeled in two separate grants.

The Franklin County CDC was awarded a $89,423 Massachusetts Department of Agricultural Resources (MDAR) Food Ventures Program grant, which will supplement a $212,000 U.S. Department of Agriculture award to fund the purchase of a blast freezer for food processing, as well as the purchase of an industrial dishwasher replacement and floor renovations.

“This will put us on good footing for a while,” said Franklin County CDC Executive Director John Waite. “[The $301,423 in grants] is going to help us add some of this equipment and fix up some things that have deteriorated over the last 23 years.”

The blast freezer, Waite added, is a nice addition to the Western Massachusetts Food Processing Center and will be a more efficient piece of equipment than the current machine, which uses liquid nitrogen and requires a large volume of food to operate.

Instead, the blast freezer can freeze smaller portions of food, thus expanding opportunities to smaller businesses and farms. It also has the capability to freeze products like soup, which will allow for a wider range of products to be created at the center.

In all, Waite said grants like these are what allows the Western Massachusetts Food Processing Center to take in a wider range of entrepreneurs and food businesses.

“We don’t want to charge high fees for people using our kitchen,” Waite said, adding that the grants are a way to keep those fees down, as expensive equipment can be replaced. The Western Massachusetts Food Processing Center served 97 clients in fiscal year 2024.

MDAR’s Massachusetts Food Ventures Program helps increase food access by funding processing infrastructure, distribution channels and retail outlet strategies at local food enterprises. Grants can be put toward capital expenditures, such as specialized equipment for scaling up food production, food packaging or items for a commercial kitchen/incubator space.

“These two MDAR grant programs make our local food system more resilient by lessening our dependency on outside food production,” MDAR Commissioner Ashley Randle said in a statement announcing the grants on Nov. 27. “More local food production in our urban neighborhoods will ensure that residents have greater access to fresh produce, improving their well-being. Providing resources to help food enterprises grow enhances their ability to feed their communities.”

For more information about the Franklin County CDC or the Western Massachusetts Food Processing Center, visit fccdc.org.

Chris Larabee can be reached at clarabee@recorder.com.