Cargill in August cut the ribbon on a greatly expanded Food Innovation Center in Plymouth, Minn., a space that brings under one roof the majority of its North American food and ingredient research staff. The $5.5 million expansion doubled the square footage of the facility from 20,000 to 40,000 and will focus on snacks, cereal, bakery, confectionary, convenience, and frying applications.
Highlights include:
* A collaboration and presentation space that incorporates a fully equipped commercial kitchen for prototype preparation and culinary demonstrations
* A state-of-the-art frying applications space measuring the performance of various blends of frying oils under controlled conditions
* A sensory facility housing descriptive analysis panels and consumer/panelist testing booths
* Significant oil ingredient development space devoted to R&D for a variety of fats and oils solutions
* A snacks, cereal and baking mix pilot area to scale up bench concepts to replicate production environments
* A bakery applications center facility including a host of commercial and specialized baking equipment
"We designed a facility we believe will promote collaboration, accelerate innovation and help our customers reduce product development cycles," said Kerr Dow, Cargill vice president of global food technology. The center offers retail and food service customers access to state-of-the-art research equipment and the collective know-how of the company's food scientists.
Cargill's Food Innovation Center is the company's primary R&D facility serving food & beverage manufacturers and food service customers in North America. It is an integral part of Cargill's network of Global Cargill Innovation Centers, including the European and Latin American Food Innovation Centers. In the past few years, Cargill opened innovation centers in Campinas, Brazil; Wichita, Kan. (U.S.); and New Delhi, India; and has expanded its European Research and Development Center in Vilvoorde, Belgium.
