Lamb Weston EMEA has inaugurated a new Innovation Center in Bergen op Zoom, the Netherlands. This state-of-the-art facility enhances the frozen potato products specialist’s ability to develop and test new items and production processes, thus accelerating the company’s innovation worldwide.
Featuring a small scale pilot line, the innovation center offers the opportunity to innovate products using different potato varieties, cutting techniques, chip shapes and flavors. It also gives Lamb Weston EMEA the ability to test sustainable production techniques that may lead to less usage of energy and water.
“This enables us to bring even more and better initiatives to our customers and consumers, driving best in class product and processing innovation to deliver our loved potato products to more people, in a more sustainable way,” said Marc Schroeder, Lamb Weston’s international president (pictured at far right in photo above).
“The Innovation Center is located in the center of an innovative hub with the DAB (Delta Agriculture Business) and agri/technical schools. This already turned out to be a perfect breeding ground for new ideas in the past and also gives further growth opportunities in our total agri/food sector,” stated Bergen op Zoom Mayor Frank Petter (pictured in the middle of above photo, to the right of Mike Smith, Lamb Weston’s chief operations officer).
Meanwhile, Stephan van Kuik joined the Lamb Weston EMEA team as general manager on June 12. The Dutch national was welcomed aboard with significant experience gained from multinational businesses including Danone and most recently Driscoll’s, where he held several leadership positions in general management, commercial, operating and commercial development roles.
