IFF, a global leader in food and beverage, home and personal care, scent, and health announced that it aims to complete the renovation and expansion of its facilities in Shanghai Hongqiao Airport Business Park, Shanghai, China. The site will be fully operational by the end of August 2024. The 16,000 square-meter site, named “Shanghai Creative Center,” is IFF’s largest in Asia. The project is designed to drive the development of innovative solutions across the IFF portfolio in China and the Greater Asia market, further strengthening its global leadership in fragrances, flavours, functional ingredients, and bioscience-based portfolios.
“The Shanghai Creative Center will bring together capabilities across IFF, all in one location, enabling us to improve our delivery of end-to-end solutions for customers in Asia and around the world,” said Erik Fyrwald, IFF chief executive officer. “This was a natural next step following the opening of our Singapore Innovation Center in 2022 and reaffirms our dedication to advancing innovation in Asia.”
IFF first entered the Chinese market in 1981, becoming the fragrance and flavour industry’s first multinational to establish footprint and to set up a factory. The newly renovated site signals the importance of the Asia region to IFF, globally. Today, China is one of the most important markets for flavours and fragrances with high potential for growth. Furthermore, the region’s demand for bioscience-based products is rapidly accelerating, as consumers increasingly seek options for greater longevity and healthy lifestyles. IFF’s deep knowledge and experience in these sectors, coupled with this investment in the innovation center, positions the Company to offer differentiated products to market quickly and effectively to support its customers’ brand growth strategies in China.
ofi (olam food ingredients), a global leader in naturally good food and beverage ingredients, is celebrating the official opening of the first phase of its new, state-of-the-art dairy processing plant located in the dairy heartland of New Zealand – the Waikato region in the north island of the country. The facility will produce dairy ingredients like whole milk powder to meet growing demand, targeting key customer applications in dessert, bakery, beverage, and confectionery categories.
Sandeep Jain, Managing Director and CEO, Dairy, at ofi commented: “As we continue to expand our dairy manufacturing capabilities and innovation infrastructure, the new Tokoroa plant will become part of a global network that spans major milk consumption markets, such as South-East Asia, China, the Middle East, and Africa. The new plant also complements a suite of enhancements made to ofi’s dairy production facility and Ingredient Excellence Centre (IEC) in Johor, Malaysia back in September – which combined with our Customer Solutions Center based in Singapore, enables us to co-create bespoke food and beverage solutions for our customers. Our dairy business is well positioned to serve increased demand from our global customer base and co-create innovative applications at scale – driving additional focus on the value-added capabilities within our portfolio.”
The Tokoroa dairy ingredients forms part of ofi’s much wider natural ingredients portfolio which includes cocoa, coffee, nuts and spices, ideal combinations with dairy for customized products such as yogurts, protein bars and ready-to-drink tea, coffee and cocoa beverages. The new facility also complements ofi’s existing global footprint, driving stronger partnerships with its customers and strengthening its co-creation capabilities across the region.
The next stage of investment will see further capability added to the facility to develop high value dairy ingredients, expanding the range of ofi’s offering. It will also enable ofi to look at ways to grow the value of its milk, generating better returns for its farmer partners while delivering on its ambition to produce ingredients in a way that is socially responsible and environmentally sustainable.
Naval Sabri, Senior Vice President, Dairy, at ofi said: “The enthusiastic response we’ve received from local farmers shows that our partnership approach, and ofi’s global reputation as a leading dairy ingredients provider and innovator, has struck a chord with them.”
Refresco opened its new high-bay warehouse at the Calvörde production site in Germany. At this manufacturing facility, Refresco, one of the leading independent providers of beverage solutions in Germany is setting new standards for efficient logistics and future-oriented quality delivery. With a total capacity of more than 41,000 pallet spaces, this is now Refresco’s largest fully automated warehouse.
Refresco invested over 20 million euros in the construction of this new high-bay warehouse. The largest single investment of the German business unit to date, this new warehouse is of strategic importance for the production and logistics at this location for the future. Thanks to the modern conveyor technology and increased storage capacity, Refresco expects significant annual efficiency improvements for the production environment as well as for the transportation of finished products. The new state-of-the-art warehouse gives Refresco the opportunity to continue to grow dynamically with their customers and to acquire new business. In addition, the fully automated logistics system will increase occupational safety at the site.
Milestone
“The new high-bay warehouse is a milestone for us and makes this one of Refresco’s most advanced locations worldwide,” says Till Alvermann, Managing Director Refresco Germany. “Among other things, the complete automation of our logistical handling allows us to load quickly and safely and improves our competitive advantage. We also strengthen the service level for our customers. We are therefore very pleased to be able to officially commission the high-bay warehouse today.”
Refresco invests a substantial portion of their profit in their manufacturing facilities, to improve and/or expand capacity and technological capabilities. The investment in this new warehouse at a strategically important site for Refresco, is but one example of Refresco’s continued investment in their network of production sites.
At Calvörde, on 800 metres of conveyor line, 42 double aisles of an electric overhead conveyor connect all product lines and the shipping area to the high-bay warehouse. 36 gravity roller conveyors provide up to 400 pallets per hour at twelve loading ramps. The high throughput capacity also enables the simultaneous loading of ten trucks per hour.
Other high-bay warehouses
Refresco has four other high-bay warehouses across their European footprint, located at production sites in the Netherlands, Germany, and France. They are all similar in the way they were designed and are operated: production lines are connected to the warehouse, with the help of a stacker crane finished products are controlled and stored within the racks, and the pre-staging of pallets is fully automated all the way to the docking area, where trucks pull up to quicky and smoothly load beverages for delivery.
