Cargill is investing US$6.4 million to expand its food pilot capabilities at its North American Pilot Development Center in Savage, Minnesota, for bakery customers to increase their speed-to-market with new products.
The new facility will allow the edible oils business to conduct multi-scale, continuous piloting, starting with the refining of new vegetable oils and blends and ending with innovative shortening solutions for breads, cakes, cookies, frying and other uses.
Other food ingredients, including those used for confectionery products and infant nutrition, can also be piloted at the site.
The 6,500-square-foot facility will include a refinery pilot plant to create new oils and blends to produce shortenings that have enhanced functionality for specific customer applications.
It will have a fats and oils crystallization center to process shortening for ensuring the right textures in newly designed products; and a lab that analyze key fats and oils quality parameters rapidly.
Construction of the new facility, which sits adjacent to Cargill’s existing Engineering R&D Lab in Savage, began in April 2019 and is expected to be fully operational late summer 2020.
The new Center complements Cargill’s Minneapolis Research and Development Center and Cargill Food Innovation Center.
The new facility joins other pilot and food innovation facilities Cargill also operates including its European Research and Development Centre in Vilvoorde, Belgium; Asia Innovation Center in Beijing, China; and Cargill Innovation Center in Singapore.
The global presence allows for broad knowledge sharing to create customized regional solutions.
