USA – IFF subsidiary Tastepoint has opened a new creative center in the USA to support innovation in the food and beverage industry.
The new center features flavor creation and design laboratories to support innovation in the categories of culinary, bakery, bars, confectionery and beverage.
According to Tastepoint, the collaborative space supports product development by leveraging the portfolio of IFF ingredients, including proteins, hydrocolloids, naturally sourced colors, flavors and food protection.
The new center follows recent upgrades at its manufacturing facility in California which is not far from where the new creative center has been established.
Upgrades to the manufacturing center include new production capabilities for seasoning blends and spray dry products as well as the integration of new technologies to enhance emulsion flavor capabilities.
“We are incredibly energized by our West Coast growth,” said Patty McCormick, design director for Tastepoint by IFF.
“This expanded access to our creative and design teams will undoubtedly ignite innovation that meets the product development needs of our customers and their consumers.”
The creative center comes against a backdrop of portfolio optimization at IFF which may include divesting more non-core businesses.
“Over the coming quarters, we will proceed with marketing a handful of non-strategic businesses, call it three or four,” said Glenn R. Richter, chief financial officer in an earnings call to discuss fiscal-year 2021 results.
Richer noted that the company was confident that “over the next 18 months, we can generate expected proceeds of approximately $1.5 billion to $1.7 billion”.
“Similar to our fruit prep and microbial control businesses, these are non-strategic, and the transactions will be accretive to our go-forward growth rate and margin profile,” he added.
After merging with DuPont’s Nutrition & Biosciences business, New York-based IFF last year completed the sale of its fruit preparation business to Frulact.
IFF is also in the advanced stages of completing the sale of its microbial control business unit to Lanxess, a specialty chemicals company.
The combination of the two transactions will generate about US$1.4 billion in gross proceeds, said Andreas Fibig, chief executive officer.
The company in 2022 expects net sales of about US$12.3 billion to US$12.7 billion with pricing actions implemented to offset rising input costs.
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