Tate & Lyle PLC, a leading global provider of speciality food ingredients and solutions, has unveiled its upgraded Food Systems Global Innovation Centre in Lübeck, Germany.

In May 2016, Tate & Lyle’s Food Systems facility in Lübeck was refocused as a site dedicated exclusively to innovation, applications and solutions expertise for customers of its global Food Systems business. As part of this refocusing, investments were made to expand and enhance the customer-facing facilities, and these are now complete and open for customers to use.

As well as its extensive applications laboratories, the Lübeck Centre includes four large state-of-the-art pilot plants with dedicated areas for dairy, convenience, bakery and meat preparation allowing for fully customised prototype production as well as the demonstration of on-site technical expertise. The pilot plants have the capacity for up to 300 trials per month. The Centre will also be used to hold customer and distributor events, including innovation workshops, seminars and on-site technical training.

“We are delighted to welcome our customers to our state-of-the-art Food Systems Global Innovation Centre in Lübeck. Working with our technical experts across the world, this Centre will play a pivotal role in the development and future growth of our global Food Systems business," said Brian Walker, SVP & general manager, Food Systems Europe, Middle East & Africa.

“In Food Systems, we operate locally but innovate and share recipes and technical expertise globally, so that our teams of technical experts across the world are able to consistently provide our customers with the bespoke solutions they need in their local markets. Our Centre in Lübeck is very important as it is the hub through which this global innovation and expertise in Food Systems is shared," said Gianluca Brusoni, director global food systems R&D and applications, Tate & Lyle.

The Centre in Lübeck is part of Tate & Lyle’s global network of applications laboratories, which includes Tate & Lyle’s Commercial and Food Innovation Centre in Chicago, its primary research and innovation centre. Customers visit these laboratories to work with Tate & Lyle’s food scientists to reformulate their products and to develop solutions using Tate & Lyle’s wide range of ingredients.