Bühler has unveiled its new food innovation hub in Uzwil, Switzerland, bringing together a range of capabilities into a single location and setting a new stage for product and process development. Four application and training centres (ATCs) – the flavour creation centre, food creation centre, protein application centre, and energy recovery centre – are opening their doors to customers, therefore complementing the existing ATCs, such as the extrusion application centre. The new ATCs connect the entire value chain and enable a circular economy approach to food production. With Bühler’s infrastructure and team of professionals, customers have the ideal environment to understand market changes and design their products.
“In this world where requirements are changing so fast, customers need flexibility and creativity to adapt their products addressing key issues such as sustainability, the use of local raw materials, healthy diets, and affordability,” said Johannes Wick, CEO of grains and food at Bühler Group. “With the completion of the new application and training centres, we are able to cover the entire scope of production – from different raw materials to multiple types of finished products. We can offer our customers enormous flexibility and the options they need to disrupt their markets.”
Bühler has application and training centres in 23 locations around the world – some of which cover multiple industrial applications. These centres offer customers training and provide them with a collaborative platform to test new product ideas and experiment with product innovations. Over the last few years, Bühler’s global network of application centres has expanded, bringing together new business partners, academy, start-ups, and suppliers, with the goal of driving innovation for customers. In Oct, along with the Institute of Food Technology (Ital), the FoodTech HUB Latam, Cargill, and Givaudan, Bühler opened the Tropical Food Innovation Lab in Brazil. This innovation ecosystem develops sustainable food and beverages while promoting biodiversity in Brazil.
Enabling innovation through synergies
With the opening of the new flavour creation centre, food creation centre, protein application centre, and energy recovery centre, together with the application and training centres already in operation in Uzwil, this site has become a one-stop shop for Bühler’s customers worldwide.
“The opening of the application and training centres is a milestone in our journey to support our customers and partners, to create a more sustainable food system,” said Ian Roberts, CTO at Bühler Group. “At the new ATCs customers have access to a unique combination of technology and expertise.”
The new protein application centre provides field to ingredient and consumer product process solutions under one roof. The centre will enable the build-up of knowledge and foster the development of processes for the production of plant-based food, including meat substitutes, plant-based drinks and ingredients. Equipped with the latest wet isolation and fractionation techniques for separation of protein, starches, and fibres, the centre is operated in collaboration with Bühler’s partner, endeco, and will connect the grain innovation centre, extrusion application centre, pasta application centre, food creation centre, flavour creation centre, and energy recovery centre.
The extrusion application centre, which runs 80 to 90 trials per year, will link closely into the new protein application centre, enabling a unique opportunity to optimise the full process solution from raw materials through consumer products. In this multi-purpose laboratory customers can conduct tests on food and animal feed, test new recipes, product shapes, and textures.
At the flavour creation centre, Bühler’s proven expertise in processing, roasting and grinding cocoa beans, nuts, and coffee is combined in one place to create flavours and products. The centre, which has been processing coffee since 2013 and cocoa and nuts since 2022, has been upgraded and renovated. It offers product innovation, training, process optimisation, raw material analyses and operates in line with Bühler’s chocolate application centre, food creation centre, and energy recovery centre.
Be it snack bars, wafers, biscuits, crackers, any variety of baked goods, or chocolate products, the new food creation centre was developed to support customers through the entire innovation and industrialization process. The centre, located in an area of 850 sq m, combines cutting-edge technology, analytical services, product and process development, workshops, and trainings.
Integrated energy efficiency solutions
Together, the application and training centres in Uzwil produce about 550 tons of biomass annually. To make optimum use of the waste and by-products generated by the ATCs, Bühler and its strategic partner, Vyncke, have built the energy recovery centre, which serves as a heating facility for Bühler’s headquarters. The energy recovery centre also works as a demonstration and testing platform for customers who want to reduce CO2 footprint, waste production, and energy costs by using side streams.
“The energy generation from biomass as an integrated part of process solutions for food has not been systematically developed and therefore has an enormously high potential, both from a business and sustainability perspective,” said Wick. “The Bühler-Vyncke energy recovery centre is an important step for us in implementing our sustainability goals and is intended to serve as an example for energy recovery options in food and feed production.”
Transformative impact at scale
Bühler’s partnerships have promoted technology development and new means of collaborating with customers and partners. Milling Solutions, together with the other business areas, also started construction on a new grain innovation centre in Uzwil, where Bühler and its customers and partners will develop, test, and scale sustainable and efficient solutions for grain and feed processing to improve food and feed solutions. The focus will be on yield, quality, energy efficiency, and the flexibility of the plants together with nutritious and great tasting recipes based on a broad variety of grains and pulses. The GIC is scheduled to start operations by the end of 2024.
A new grain processing innovation centre (GPIC) in Kano, Nigeria, is also under construction and should open its doors at the beginning of 2024. The centre will be focused on the development of products, recipes, and processes using local grains, such as sorghum, millets, maize, soy beans, beans, and tigernuts.
“More than the impressive capacities of each new application and training centres we have been investing in, these are built to work in an integrated manner, offering a comprehensive process, so that the customers can take the best of it, and achieve tangible and remarkable outcomes,” said Wick.
