FDBusiness.com

FMCG giant Unilever has announced plans to build a new global foods innovation centre in Wageningen, the Netherlands.

This new centre will centralise their Food R&D organisations, currently in Vlaardingen, the Netherlands, Heilbronn in Germany and Poznan in Poland, on one site. All the roles across these sites will now be based in the Wageningen site.

When the site becomes fully operational by April 2019, it will employ around 550 roles on site.

Unilever indicates that, by combining their R&D resources in areas such as foods into key research sites, they will create a “critical mass” of expertise in these areas to ensure that they bring the latest innovations to the markets.

Jan Zijderveld, President at Unilever Europe, says: “The agri-food innovation climate in the Netherlands is very strong. The co-location of all elements of our foods R&D organisation within the foods innovation ecosystem in Wageningen will enable Unilever to strengthen its ability to develop cutting edge foods innovations in close collaboration with the Wageningen University & Research and a broad variety of other science institutes and start-ups.”