Agrana invests €3.4 million at R&D sites in 2020
Agrana is investing around €3.4 million at two R&D sites in France and Austria this year.
The group will create a new development centre in France for its fruit preparations business. Agrana maintains 17 development centres around the world, which work on new formulations, special ingredients and raw materials as well as new application areas for existing products.
Five of these so-called New Product Development Centres are located in Europe, namely in Gleisdorf (Austria), Ostroleka (Poland), Serpukhov (Russia), Vinnytsia (Ukraine) and in Mitry-Mory (France), where the development centre has recently been upgraded for €2.6 million, including the addition of 700 m2 of laboratory space.
“Agrana is the global market leader in fruit preparations. That’s why it is important to be an innovator and not a market follower with me-too products. In our role as a first mover in regional markets, we try to pick up on new development trends as early as possible. We develop products in close collaboration with our customers in order to reflect local market requirements and these latest trends. Our global network of product developers enables us to launch over 1,000 new fruit preparation products on the market every year”, explained AGRANA CEO Johann Marihart.
Agrana will invest €800,000 in the expansion of the Agrana Research & Innovation Centre (ARIC) in Tulln. ARIC in Tulln is the main research and development subsidiary within the Agrana Group. On an area of around 4,000 m2 at ARIC, 85 employees work on research projects related to fruit, starch and sugar.
ARIC is currently undergoing expansion work, with the aim being to create a further 300 m2 for research purposes by the end of the year. The investment volume amounts to €800,000.
In its fruit segment, Agrana conducts research into the development of natural stabilisers for fruit preparations as well as processes for sensitively handling fruit ingredients.
In the starch segment, the current focus areas related to food starches. In the case of technical starches, the focus is on the development of special starches.
In the sugar segment, the focal point of work ongoing is on the development of new, environmentally-friendly and energy-saving processes and process steps in the area of production as well as on maximising the efficiency of sugar beet utilisation and the optimal exploitation of by-products, such as extracting betaine.
