Symrise Opens New Research Center in Holzminden
26 Apr 2013 --- Symrise has moves into its new research center at its headquarters in Holzminden. With the new building, the company is promoting the interdisciplinary research dialogue between its two divisions, Scent & Care and Flavor & Nutrition.
Dr. Heinz-Jürgen Bertram, CEO of Symrise, underscores the innovative potential Symrise will gain from this investment.
Research and development form the basis of Symrise’s business activities. This is reflected in the new research center at the company’s headquarters in Holzminden. Work in the new building will begin following the festive opening celebration on April 25, 2013.
Dr. Heinz-Jürgen Bertram, CEO of Symrise AG, highlights the role of the new research center: “Around the world, new trends are coming into existence every day and consumers are developing new needs. We strategically incorporate these strong dynamics arising from individual markets and segments into our research work in order to develop innovative solutions early on. That is why we cross-link our business units and pool our research activities. In this way, we realize interdisciplinary projects and can optimally make use of our competencies in the areas of fragrances, functional ingredients and flavors.”
Symrise has invested €10 million in the new building. Per year, the Group spends more than €100 million on research and development.
Spread over four floors and 2,400 square meters of floor space, the research center provides room for 90 workers. Along with offices, there are spacious communication and conference rooms for customer presentations and meetings with external cooperation partners as well as universities and institutes.
“With our new research center, we want to strengthen our expertise in research and development, which is the basis for a competitive position as well as for accelerated growth,” adds Dr. Bertram. “A special point of emphasis was put on researching functional ingredients for healthy nutrition and conscious personal care.”
The company paid special attention to sustainability issues during construction of the building: Waste heat from the surrounding laboratory buildings is used in the form of steam condensate to provide at least 75% of the heating for the new building.
About 20 percent of Symrise’s total staff works in research and development. Six percent of the company’s investments are also made in this area. Since the merger ten years ago, the company has applied for 411 patents and more than 1,500 product brands and trademarks. The company also created more than 600 new jobs during this period.
