December 14, 2023 - In November, the Swiss technology group Bühler opened its expanded innovation centre for food in Uzwil. The new Food Creation Centre is a central part of this hub. It offers an integrated perspective on product and process development for a wide variety of foods. Bühler teams support customers all the way from the idea phase through rapid prototyping and implementation in the industrial process, to validation and scale-up.
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| Whether it is snack bars, wafers, biscuits, crackers, or any kind of chocolate confectioneries, the new Food Creation Center supports customers through the entire innovation and industrialization process. |
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Helping to shape trends
The global food mega trends such as premiumisation, health, sustainability, affordable nutrition and on-the-go snacks that appeal to consumers provide opportunities for our customers to adapt their portfolios and marketing strategies. To help unlock these opportunities in precisely why Bühler has invested into this new centre for food innovation in Uzwil. "In concrete terms, this means that we're developing products for and with customers that correspond to these mega trends. For example, we created sugar-free protein bars made by pea protein," says Stefanie Hardtmann, Head of Food Creation Centre & Consumer Food Technology. The exchange with Bühler's experts does not end in Uzwil but extends across the entire network in Europe and beyond. In the Food Creation Centre in Uzwil, customers from the traditional bakery sector will find a fully equipped bakery with an auditorium for courses, sufficient space for training and bakery equipment for testing in various batch sizes.
Making Food Sensations a reality
Bühler's knowledge of current trends, its expertise in implementing them, and its global network of Food experts are the best prerequisites for implementing food sensations. With the help of Bühler, edible cups were developed that can hold hot contents for 45 minutes without leaking. "Through new combinations of process steps, we achieve results that deserve to be called sensations," says Stefanie Hardtmann. "Another vivid example is the savoury filled wafer pillow with a tomato and cheese filling. We were able to develop these together with the wafer team from Leobendorf, Austria. The pillows are a good size for snacking; they're lightweight, low in fat and calories and have an intense, natural tomato and cheese flavour." In the cracker range, potato and chia seed potato chips were created, offering a gluten-free, vegan, low-fat crispy snack. There is a particularly wide variety for those with a sweet tooth, as many bar or wafer products are coated in chocolate. The Food Creation Centre also produces chocolates with unusual fillings, including a vegan, gluten-free chocolate praline with a peanut-free peanut filling. The possibilities offered to customers by the centre are as creative as they are varied.
Services from A to Z
Covering an area of 850 square meters, the Food Creation Centre combines cutting-edge technology, analytical services, product, and process development as well as workshops and training courses for Bühler's customer experts. Stefanie Hardtmann and her team know their customers and the trends. "Thanks to our market knowledge, gained from our businesses from field to consumer, we're able to support our customers throughout the entire innovation process along their value chains, from the raw material to the finished consumer product. We also help with the detailed development of business cases, capital expenditure analyses and return-on-investment estimates all the way through to the first sample production or the first finished product prototype."
"In Uzwil, we have the smallest scale industrial production line. This means we can not only offer our customers the opportunity to test small batch sizes of a product, assess process performance and scale up to higher production scales with confidence," explains Stefanie Hardtmann. "Product quality and process stability are two decisive criteria here,"adds Stefanie Hardtmann.
More than snacks and chocolate bars
The comprehensive range of applications, possibilities and network benefits offered by Bühler's centre for food innovation at a single location is unique. Bühler is committed to supporting its customers in the food industry in feeding the world's growing population in a sustainable and healthy way. "The opening of the four new application and training centres is an important milestone in our efforts to support our customers and partners in developing a more sustainable food system,"says Ian Roberts, CTO of Bühler. "In these centres, our customers have access to a unique combination of technology and expertise."
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This blog is maintained by The Global Miller staff and is supported by the magazine Milling and Grain
which is published by Perendale Publishers Limited.
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