Accelerating innovation: AAK debuts California-based Customer Innovation Center

18 Nov 2019 --- Manufacturer of specialty vegetable fats and oils, AAK USA has opened its newest Customer Innovation Center, in Richmond, California. The facility supports co-development work with multiple industry segment-focused labs and houses AAK’s US Center of Excellence for plant-based foods.

“AAK has over 15 Customer Innovation Centers worldwide and has opened multiple locations across the US over the last several years,” explains Octavio Diaz de Leon, President of AAK USA and AAK North Latin America. “Our Richmond Customer Innovation Center investment offers an additional 2,000-square feet of co-development space and delivers on our commitment to providing our customer-partners coast-to-coast service and support.”

“We accelerate innovation using AAK’s co-development approach, and our expansive team of fats and oils, bakery, dairy, plant-based foods and personal care experts, all coming together to create real-world formulation solutions.”

The addition of the Richmond Innovation Center allows AAK to bring specialty vegetable oil solutions to our West Coast customers in a collaborative way, the company notes.

James Jones, VP for Customer Innovation, Plant-Based Foods, AAK USA adds: “We test AAK solutions and prove them in our customer’s products, ensuring functionality before plant trials and production. Our experts evaluate the customer critical attributes of flavor, texture, appearance – and even sound – that impact the consumer’s organoleptic and emotional eating experience.”

Fats and oils are a critical component of flavor and functionality systems for many products, especially plant-based foods, Jones adds. “We continue to improve our portfolio of customer prototypes and solutions in close collaboration with our customers. Not only do we help them with their own ideas, we also bring our customer-partners new product ideas,” he muses.

AAK says that its facility is staffed with an expansive team of product development experts who have a deep understanding of the many roles that fats and oils play in a customer’s formula and in their process, labels and value chains. This team utilizes the same or similar equipment a customer would use, enabling AAK to provide hands-on co-development to tackle issues with formulas, ingredient statements, nutrition, processes and products.  

“By connecting similar formulation strategies from seemingly unrelated products, our open collaboration has led to a number of breakthrough product development concepts. In Richmond, we continue this style of teamwork and collective learning, delivering further insights and innovative solutions for our customers,” notess Steve Council, Richmond Customer Innovation Manager, AAK USA. 

Richmond features three Customer Innovation laboratories including:
- Bakery Lab allows the AAK team to test and experiment with new and current product offerings to bring prototypes straight to customers, to expedite bakery innovation and speed to market. AAK’s bakery specialists create a wide range of bakery goods using shortenings, hardstocks, frying oils, margarines, cubed shortenings and flaked shortenings. Many of the most popular products consist of biscuits, cookies, croissants, cupcakes, cakes, donuts, dry bakery mixes, frozen baked goods, icings, pies/pie crusts, pizza crusts and flatbreads.
-Dairy and Plant-Based Foods Lab includes all of the equipment necessary to develop dairy products using vegetable fats in place of dairy fat, as well as products that are 100 percent plant-based foods that provide the appearance, texture, mouthfeel and flavor delivery expected by consumers. AAK's knowledge of vegetable oil and fats working in conjunction with other ingredients has enabled its innovation team to develop an industry-first, creamy plant-based cheese that can be sliced or shredded without crumbling. This was made possible with the new lab as AAK focuses on solutions that replace milk fat in a variety of consumer products including butter alternatives, cheese analogs, plant-based creamers, whipped toppings, plant-based yogurts and frozen desserts like ice cream.
- Personal Care Lab focuses on solutions for skincare, hair care, color cosmetics, and other personal care products that require high performing, botanically-derived emollients. AAK’s shea-based ingredients, customers can improve the functional and sensorial appeal of formulations and also make a positive difference to the socio-economic development of the communities in West Africa that rely on the shea trade for their livelihood. Solutions focus on lip balms, lipsticks, sunscreens and lotions.

Edited by Gaynor Selby