Barilla Group today (Nov. 18) opened its Barilla Innovation & Technology Experience (BITE), a global R&D center in Parma, Italy. Spanning nearly 150,000 sq. ft. and costing more than $25 million, it’s the company’s largest investment in food innovation in recent years.
BITE is designed as a global hub to foster development across the Barilla Group’s portfolio. Pasta, sauces and bakery are among the categories to be explored there by its team of 200, including food technologists, researchers, engineers, designers, professional tasters and chefs. Plus, each year, 30 interns from Italy and other countries join Barilla’s R&D community.
The new center includes areas for tasting and sensory research, experimental kitchens for pasta and bakery, and pilot plants, enabling new product development and processes plus packaging solutions.
The company said the center includes technologies such as the electronic nose, AI-driven smart sensors, mapping of aromatic profiles, enhanced pasta drying, 3D printing and holographic design.
BITE also is the center of an open innovation ecosystem that already has 84 active collaborations with universities and research centers in Italy and worldwide, including Purdue University in the U.S. and Ludwig-Maximilians-Universität München in Germany and Wageningen University in the Netherlands.
About the Author
Dave Fusaro
Editor in Chief
Dave Fusaro has served as editor in chief of Food Processing magazine since 2003. Dave has 30 years experience in food & beverage industry journalism and has won several national ASBPE writing awards for his Food Processing stories. Dave has been interviewed on CNN, quoted in national newspapers and he authored a 200-page market research report on the milk industry. Formerly an award-winning newspaper reporter who specialized in business writing, he holds a BA in journalism from Marquette University. Prior to joining Food Processing, Dave was Editor-In-Chief of Dairy Foods and was Managing Editor of Prepared Foods.