The grand opening of the 144,000-square-foot Nestlé Research & Development Center took place in Solon, Ohio, USA on July 22, marking completion of a $50 million, two-year project to establish a global center dedicated to frozen and chilled foods. Activities in the new facility will focus on ways to balance consumer-centered innovation with technology leadership.
While the center’s mission is to sustain global needs, its location in Ohio reflects the growth in size and complexity of Nestlé’s frozen and chilled foods businesses in the United States, where its well-known brands are in the forefront of various categories. That growth made an expanded and collaborative research and development effort necessary.
Nestlé’s new R&D center in Solon, Ohio, is dedicated to transforming frozen and chilled food. It houses 120 chefs, researchers, packaging specialists, designers, engineers and scientists.
“Few areas of research are as complex as food research,” said Johannes Baensch, head of global product and technology development at Nestec Ltd. “Nestlé has a long-standing reputation for excellence in research on food and nutrition, and this research center is regarded as one of the world’s leading laboratories in food and life sciences. By creating Nestlé R&D Solon, we are transporting a significant piece of our global research expertise to the United States, our largest global market.”
Baensch continued: “Nestlé has been dedicated to enhancing people’s lives since Henri Nestlé founded the company nearly 150 years ago. Today, we’re still focused on offering good food that provides added health benefits, fulfills the highest safety standards and offers nutritional advantages. Food also must look and taste good, and offer convenience to consumers. Our Nestlé R&D Solon team will help to improve every aspect of the frozen and chilled foods we market with this vision in mind.”
In addition to developing R&D strategy for Nestlé’s worldwide frozen and chilled foods businesses, experts at the facility will focus on product innovation and renovation that both meet Nestlé’s Nutrition Foundation requirements and balance taste with nutrition. This will be done by exploring ways to reduce sodium and saturated fat in recipes, eliminate partially hydrogenated oils, incorporate more vegetables, and create gluten-free and high-protein options.
The oven technology lab features 60 microwave ovens from around the world. Testing is conducted at various power settings to ensure Nestlé frozen meals and snacks include optimal cooking times.
The team will also provide expert technical assistance to the company’s production plants around the world, as well as guidance in the areas of nutrition, food processing, food quality, and food safety. Incorporated into the facility’s design is a pilot plant where the latest technology advancements and new recipes can be evaluated and refined for introduction into the marketplace.
Catering to Major Shifts in Market
“We’re experiencing one of the most profound shifts in how people eat right now. To address the ever-changing landscape, we’re striving to make our products healthier and tastier using unmatched R&D capability, nutrition science and passion for quality in everything we do,” said Paul Grimwood, chairman and ceo of Nestlé USA.
The launch of Nestlé R&D Solon is a significant expansion of the company’s already strong presence in Ohio and establishes Solon as the center of excellence for the largest frozen and chilled foods market in the world. The new center builds on a number of Nestlé businesses that either launched in Solon, such as Stouffer’s, Lean Cuisine, and Nestlé Toll House cookie doughs, or have relocated there, including Hot Pockets and Lean Pockets, DiGiorno, California Pizza Kitchen, Tombstone and Jack’s pizza brands.
Nestlé R&D Solon facility is equipped to take a chef’s recipe and “scale it up” to test if the product can be made using the same ingredients in a larger quantity, such as the pizza rounds shown here.
Nestlé has long been a steady employer in the region. With the 2014 move of Nestlé Pizza to Solon and the opening of this facility, the company now employs more than 2,200 people in the Cleveland area, 3,400 in Ohio and over 51,000 in the United States. Nestlé R&D Solon provides jobs for 120 chefs, consumer researchers, packaging specialists, designers, engineers and scientists. Over 40 employees have joined the center since the project was announced in 2013.
The facility is one of 12 “centers of excellence” for global product and process development, opening it to the full breadth and depth of the world’s largest private food and nutrition, research and development network, and fostering information sharing for Nestlé businesses across the world, including factories in Germany, France and Italy.
