More than 50 food and beverage industry professionals, met in St. Louis to celebrate innovation at a grand opening event for ICL Food Specialties’ newly expanded research and development center.

The event included an overview of the new strategy demonstrated through technical workshops, a tour of the 30,000-square-foot facility, including the applications labs and culinary kitchen, and tastings of the company’s latest protein expertise and ingredient systems at work.

Following a ceremonial ribbon-cutting by Nir Gilad, executive chairman of ICL’s board of directors, guests participated in several ingredient technology demonstrations in the culinary kitchen and with stops at bakery, beverage, dairy and meat labs as well.

“When it comes to food formulations, it’s not enough to describe innovation – we have to let our customers see, smell and taste it for themselves,” says Nancy Stachiw, director, applications development, ICL Food Specialties. “We’ve opened similar facilities in Europe, Mexico and Brazil and are thrilled to now offer our North American customers a creative center where they can collaborate and develop product concepts that meet consumer trends, from ideation to commercialization. The ICL Food Specialties food technologists work alongside them to solve formulation challenges.”

Based in the St. Louis suburb of Webster Groves, the space more than doubles the size of the previous R&D facility and is outfitted with state-of-the-art equipment, including a full culinary test kitchen and performance technology with video tools that allows ICL Food Specialties experts to host virtual ideation sessions and live, instructional webinars.

Technology You Can Taste
The true highlight of the event was the expansive tasting menu present in all parts of the customer workshop featuring ICL Food Specialties ingredient technologies.

A buffet style lunch was followed by innovation tours with further applications prototypes finished off with a happy hour of snacks and drinks. Every item customers touched and tasted throughout the day featured ICL Food Specialties ingredients.

“Functional knowledge of how proteins change during processing is an industry challenge we face with our customers,” Stachiw says. “Protein management, like that showcased in these delicious tastings, is one of our differentiating competencies across meat, dairy, beverage and bakery applications.” To learn more about ICL Food Specialties and its operations please visit the company’s new website www.iclfood.com.

About ICL Food Specialties
ICL Food Specialties offers a diverse portfolio of functional ingredients and extensive application experience. The ICL Food Specialties team has the expertise that inspires customers to innovate faster by selecting the right ingredients for function earlier in the development cycle. To learn more about how ICL Food Specialties’ market- and trend-focused experts can help you tailor a formulation without sacrificing taste, contact us at food@icl-group.com or www.iclfood.com.