Opened this week, the new 7000 square foot product development center will focus on the development of bars, beverages and baked goods made with Glanbia’s dairy protein and flax ingredients.
Customer involvement
The center provides a location for customers to work closely with a team of 15 Glanbia staff on developing new product concepts and testing their manufacture at a pilot stage.
“We’re finding that our customers want more hands-on involvement with product design and this facility will allow them to do that. This new site will enable us to work side-by-side with our customers on product development in a much timelier manner,” said Eric Bastian, vice president of R&D at Glanbia Nutritionals.
The Glanbia Collaboration Center, located in Twin Falls, Idaho, also means that customers will have access to Glanbia’s pilot plant, which was previously located within one of the firm’s major factories and was therefore off-limits to external parties.
Faster product delivery
According to Bastian, the new center will also speed up delivery of product prototypes to customers as concept development and pilot manufacture will occur in one location. By eliminating the need to transport products between R&D and pilot plant sites, Bastian estimates that development time will be reduced by 40 percent.
The site will focus on the development of products with two major ingredient categories: Dairy protein and flax.
As well as pilot capabilities for the development of product prototypes, Bastian explained that the new center will also allow Glanbia to work on ingredient fractionation.
“We’ll be able to work with raw materials to fractionate or enrich them with specific components, either on customer request or on our own initiative. For example, we might want to develop whey protein with high levels of lactoferrin,” he told NutraIngredients-USA.com.