Cargill invests US$6.4m in US food pilot facility to accelerate NPD

Cargill is investing US$6.4 million to expand its food pilot capabilities at its North American Pilo…

Cargill is investing US$6.4 million to expand its food pilot capabilities at its North American Pilot Development Center in Savage, Minnesota, to enable bakery customers to increase their speed-to-market with new products. The new facility is based at Cargill’s North American Pilot Development Center in Savage, Minnesota, and will allow the edible oils business to conduct multi-scale, continuous piloting, starting with the refining of new vegetable oils and blends and ending with innovative shortening solutions for bread, cakes, cookies, frying and other uses. Other food ingredients, including those used for confectionery products and infant nutrition, can be piloted at the site as well, according to Cargill.

“Expanding our piloting capabilities will help us deliver quickly what matters most to our customers,” says Florian Schattenmann, Chief Technology Officer at Cargill. “Bakery is a growth area for many of our customers as well as for us at Cargill. The move will help us deliver more quickly what matters most to our customers. In addition, it will allow us to better partner with our customers to evaluate new raw materials, validate performance specifications and develop new products through a unique and comprehensive set of innovation capabilities and services – all located within the Twin Cities,” he tells.

The bakery sector is the lookout for innovations that respond to the latest consumer trends including new flavors and textures, healthier and cleaner ingredients and more indulgent experiences.

Cargill established an initial fats and oils crystallization center at the existing pilot facility in Savage in 2018 to enable the business to process high functionality bakery shortenings. The expansion will allow for the refining of novel vegetable oils and blends which can then be used to create new shortenings for a variety of applications.

“Innovation in food is often driven not by one ingredient, such as fats and oils, but through using multiple ingredients. At Cargill, our food ingredient portfolio is broad enough to first supply all the ingredients needed for new bakery treats, and then quickly try them in applications because we have all these testing capabilities,” adds John Satumba, Lead for Cargill’s global edible oil business in North America.

Highlights of the 6,500-square-foot facility include:

A refinery pilot plant to create new oils and blends using the latest technologies to produce shortenings that have enhanced functionality for specific customer applications;
A state-of-the-art fats and oils crystallization center to process shortening, important for ensuring the right textures in newly designed products;
A lab equipped to rapidly analyze key fats and oils quality parameters.
Construction of the new facility began last April and is expected to be fully operational this summer. The new center complements Cargill’s state-of-the-art Minneapolis R&D Center and Cargill Food Innovation Center.

“Our expanded pilot facility and our Food Innovation Center together will allow us to more quickly respond to customer requests for samples and test their performance in bakery products.This is a big step forward for us to support bakery innovation with the combination of science, customer intimacy and market insights,” explains Sonia Punwani, Global Bakery Category Leader, Cargill’s edible oils business.

The new facility joins other pilot and food innovation facilities Cargill also operates including its European Research and Development Centre in Vilvoorde, Belgium; Asia Innovation Center in Beijing, China; and Cargill Innovation Center in Singapore.

Cargill currently has multiple pilots, as well as ten food and feed innovation centers with world-class capabilities.