The Food Processing and Technology program on WKU’s Owensboro campus became a little more hands-on Tuesday.

Thanks to a $50,000 grant from Perdue’s Arthur W. Perdue Foundation, WKU- Owensboro will gain two pieces of equipment to enhance its Food Processing Lab.

Gene Tice, director of WKU-Owensboro, said the new fat analyzer and protein analyzer will help students gain practical experience.

“The addition of state-of-the-art equipment is critical to the development of a food analysis laboratory,” Tice said in a news release. “This will allow our students to conduct laboratory experiments and acquire hands-on experience to supplement lecture courses.”

Blaine Ferrell, dean of Ogden College, said the donation will work in combination with money from the city of Owensboro to produce a work force capable of meeting Owensboro’s food processing needs.

“The gift will be matched by an internal grant and money from the city of Owensboro which will be used to purchase a texture analyzer, a water activity meter and a colorimeter to supplement the laboratory, more than doubling the impact of the gift,” Ferrell said in the release.

President Gary Ransdell said the gift will help the program achieve its original purpose.

“The Food Processing and Technology Program at the WKU-Owensboro Campus was established in 2008 in response to the needs of the food processing industry in western Kentucky and the entire Commonwealth,” Ransdell said in the release.