Our innovation ambition: better connect the goodness of milk to the nutritional needs of all people across the globe
Driven by our fascination with milk and its benefits for us as humans, we are passionately committed to getting more out of milk by discovering and developing innovations in dairy. Innovations that connect the goodness of milk to the nutritional needs of humans even better than before, helping them move forward in life. In doing so, we develop our business and create value for the milk supplied by our member farmers. That’s why innovation is one of the key competences for the successful implementation of our route2020 strategy.
It all starts with milk’s magic. Through milk, nature provides us with its generous contribution to a well-balanced diet. There is still so much to discover about its nutritive promise and the more than 400 components in milk. Over a hundred years of research still hasn’t been enough to unlock all its secrets. We firmly believe that we can discover and develop new ways to bring the goodness of milk to people across the globe.
Use the full potential of milk
We want to use the full potential of milk to better serve our customers and consumers, perhaps even in new ways that we do not yet know about. Who, for example, would have thought that we’d be able to create the Valess meat alternative from dairy (2005)?
Our developers are looking for solutions that will make the benefits of milk easily accessible to more people across the globe. Just as we did with our Peak evaporated milk in sachets (2009), an innovation that gives many more people on the African continent access to milk.
We focus on four major themes that are relevant to consumers and to dairy:
Reinvent processes
At FrieslandCampina, we process milk and milk components into a wide variety of products. We firmly believe that state of the art technology is key to protecting the goodness of milk and making it available for consumers and customers alike. We genuinely believe that we can improve or even reinvent milk-related processes for the benefit of our consumers and customers. After all, this is precisely what we did with our milk prism technology (2010).
From incremental to radical technology innovation, from product refreshments to breakthrough innovations
You may think we’re only after radical technology improvements and breakthrough innovations for consumers. Of course we are committed to achieving these breakthroughs, but we also believe that incremental improvements of known technologies can help to produce better products in a better way. And as you probably know, we now provide hundreds of millions of people across the globe with a wide variety of products. Products that have been enjoyed by them for decades. We only need to refresh these concepts to keep the offer attractive for our consumers. At the same time breakthrough innovations (new benefits or even completely new concepts) can make the goodness of milk available to more people at more moments throughout the day. And that really helps us to transform our business and improve the valorisation of the milk supplied by our member farmers.
Our professionals and our facilities
At FrieslandCampina, more than 500 people worldwide are professionally engaged on research and development. We have an international staff with roots in all continents. In the future (2012) we will have a single global innovation centre in Wageningen, Food Valley, the Netherlands. The new building will be constructed at the southern end of the Wageningen University & Research campus, covering an area of around 15,000 m2. The building will have 3,300 m2 of laboratory space, a 1,800 m2 pilot plant, a test bakery and space for general and technical support, plus 5,000 m² of office space. The new centre will also house the Experience Centre, where products can be tasted, smelled and touched.
The professionals working at this centre will have many opportunities to collaborate with food scientists all across the globe, including their neighbours in Food Valley, and with local FrieslandCampina development and marketing teams in various markets across Europe, Asia, Africa and America (ingredients). The local fine-tuning or taste improvements will be the responsibility of these local teams.
The way we work
Crucial to our success in innovation will be our alignment with the FrieslandCampina route2020 strategy, and with the relevant professionals, facilities and budgets. Also important will be the way we work: how we collaborate internally and externally. That means we must apply high standards in project portfolio management, develop our expertise internally in communities of practice even further and actively exchange views and ideas in our external network with other companies, universities and research institutes. After all, innovation starts with fresh ideas!