T. Marzetti Company Opens Innovation Center
State-of-the-art research and development center will unite product development, culinary and quality teams under one roof to foster creativity and collaboration
T. Marzetti Company announced the opening of the Innovation Center at Green Meadows, a new 45,000 square foot state-of-the-art facility in Lewis Center, Ohio that will allow the company to expand its research and development, food safety, regulatory and quality assurance space, bringing together the best in culinary arts, food science, and technology under one roof to share ideas and collaborate on new tastes and products.
The space includes features like a sensory lab, where customers and associates will get an opportunity to test products in development; a bakery lab, where doughs and breads for brands like New York Bakery will undergo testing and development; the Katherine Hill Development Lab, which will house all sauce and dressing product development; a culinary kitchen for putting potential new tastes and products to practical use; and a quality assurance lab for QA methods development and analytical testing. All 55 associates who are initially relocating to the new Innovation Center will enjoy open work spaces to better foster collaboration and discussion.
“The Innovation Center gives our culinary and development teams an opportunity to collaborate and innovate in a way that ultimately benefits our retail and food service customers, our company and our teams,” says Steve Hill, vice president of research, development and quality, and the driving force behind the new venture. “This is going to create an incredibly rich environment for creativity and partnership that our customers and consumers will see come to life both at retail and in restaurants across the country.”
The Innovation Center was born from a desire to unite the talent, tools and resources across business units so as to provide even better ideas and more compelling innovation to help customers grow and associates develop.
“The Innovation Center marks a sizable investment in our company, customers and employees,” says Dave Ciesinski, president and CEO at Lancaster Colony Corporation, parent company to T. Marzetti. “We’re taking what we already do really well, and scaling it in a way that differentiates us from our competitors – in a way that only T. Marzetti Company can.”
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