INDONESIA – Nestlé, the Swiss multinational food and drink processing conglomerate, has partnered with Plug and Play, a global innovation platform for industry accelerators, to accelerate its innovation efforts in Indonesia.
Headquartered in Silicon Valley, Plug and Play brings together the most promising start-ups with the world’s leading corporations, in order to drive investment, foster innovation and secure collaborative partnerships.
Since its inception in 2006, Plug and Play’s accelerator programmes have expanded worldwide to over 30 locations, with over 30,000 start-ups and 400 official corporate partners.
The company’s presence in Indonesia dates back to 2016 when it received an invitation from Indonesian President Joko Widodo (Jokowi) to accelerate the country’s innovation efforts within its start-up ecosystem.
Nestlé plans to leverage Plug and Play’s innovation expertise and ecosystem of start-ups, corporations and investors to fasten its own innovation capabilities for future food technologies and solutions.
The Swiss food conglomerate’s move is strategic as it will help it re-invent itself and better position it for a future charactized by rapidily changing consumer taste and preferences.
“I have witnessed the decline of many traditional and conservative companies because they failed to adapt to rapidly evolving industries,”said Halim Hartono, director of GK-Plug and Play.
“We are really proud that Nestlé Indonesia is partnering with us to embark on this pursuit of innovation and transformative excellence in the food industry,” said Halim Hartono, director of GK-Plug and Play.
Guy Kellaway, communication director of Nestlé Indonesia, added: “For over 150 years, we have continuously focused on innovating our brands, products, systems and technologies in order to remain relevant, and competitive.”
“We look forward to this exciting partnership with GK Plug and Play which will drive our innovation efforts in the region.”
Nestlé Indonesia currently employs about 3,600 employees and operates three factories that produce milk, food and beverages under brands such as Dancow, Milow, Nescafé and KitKat.
As the Nestle company in Indonesia seeks to enhance its innovation capabilities, its US counterparts is preparing to recall more than 762,000 pounds of pepperoni Hot Pockets.
The decision to recall the pepperoni Hot Pockets was made after the company received four consumer complaints of extraneous material in pepperoni Hot Pockets.
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