Roquette boosts innovation to meet future food trends
14 Jun 2023 | Roquette
With the unveiling of its new Food Innovation Center in the historic town of Lestrem, France, Roquette prepares to realize major food trends of the future through R&D and product innovation, Pascal Leroy, senior executive vice president, Core Ingredients at Roquette tells Food Ingredients First. The center features a demonstration kitchen, a sensory analysis laboratory, various collaborative spaces and labs for pilot-scale testing across the spectrum of food applications.
This is Inde Jong here for Food ingredients first.
I'm here with Pascal LeRoy, senior executive vice president, core ingredients at Roquette.
Mr.
Le Roy, how will this, Food Innovation Center benefit businesses?
So we're very happy to have inaugurated this food innovation center here in Letrem close to Lille.
This one will serve all our businesses in the food space.
We're going to get more than 30 people working here, so as you have seen, because you have been The opportunity to visit this new facility.
It's a new, modern, and this will really help us to accelerate the innovations in all the market segments we want to serve.
Yesterday we had a lot of customers on this facility, and you know the best thing that they want all to come back to spend some time with the team here and to deep dive in some of their new product innovation.
And what are the current trends on the market?
On the market we see some trends, but this one has been already present for some years.
There's always a thirst for convenience without compromising quality, and this is really something which is quite strong in the market.
We see as.
Needs for -being and specialized nutrition and we know with some of the answers we have, especially with fibers where we try to both get those benefits in the market.
You know that protein is still a growing demand even if we have seen.
Some new market demand as , but again, with these innovation centers and with our marketing people, the goal is to better answer the consumer needs and work closely with our customers to speed up innovation.
But how will these trends shape food innovation of the future?
That's really where the core of what we want to do here.
It's understanding and working closely with our customers, understanding what is the benefit, the claim, the value proposition that needs to be invented or that needs to be reinforced or that needs to be to be accelerated.
And then translate this brief into the ingredient capabilities and with them working on the formulations that make it happen because at the end of the day it needs to be tasty, it needs to be healthy, and his meat as to meet all the sustainability indicators that we are all looking for.
What are the main focus areas of the center?
This center will focus on all food segments.
We worked on all the segments that we are already participating with a wide range of products.
We know we have more than 700 ingredients going in this market, so it's going to be about savory, it's going to be about confectionery, it's going to be about bakery.
It's going to be about as all the dairy, and we have invested.
A lot in some new equipment to try to strengthen our innovations, especially on protein in the dairy space.
So again, he's going to reinforce Rocket in his key market segment and be sure that we lead some of those spaces.
How will the center transform the food ecosystem in general?
That's where a lot of stories started, you know.
We're sitting here and a few decades ago is where the confectionery with reduced sugar was invented, and you see now you take it for granted having all your sugar-free gums, but this started from here roughly 40 years ago.
So this is what we want to reinvent and we have a lot of ideas with our customers to try to make them live and that's the one sitting here.
In 5 to 10 years from now we'll have the luxury to see on the market some.
Blockbuster and we believe in fibers, we believe in protein, we believe in all the texturizing activity, and we believe that rocket is going to be against the front runner leader and in some, hopefully most of them.
Excellent.
Thank you very much for your time.
Thank you.
