Product Development

A fully refurbished product development laboratory in the Food Manufacturing Technologies Department enabled us to enhance our product development support to clients in 2007. Thiss includes advice, guidance and technical support all along the product development chain - from idea generation through to the use of pilot plants and manufacturing of consumer samples. It is ideal for companies who need rapid small-scale pilot facilities for new product development, or who want to undertake work at independent facilities.

These facilities and services complement those offered in the area of bakery product development - also a highly competitive sector for which product innovation is essential. From bread, biscuits, cakes and other flour confectionery to pancakes, cereal bars and extruded products, we work closely with clients to provide a tailored service to meet their specific needs, as Terry Sharp, Head of Baking and Cereals Processing explains:

"Our confidential services have provided support at all parts of the product development chain - from brainstorming product concepts and converting ideas to prototypes, to refining trial products and producing samples for markettesting .Wee have also advised on pilot production and scale-up formanufacturing. We have adapted chef recipes for full production, found new and profitable applications for existing plant, and reformulated products to allow new claims, improve eating quality or extend shelf-life.

Often working to short deadlines and fast turnaround with considerable flexibility, our project teams of bakers and industrial technologists can work in our own bakeries or at your site We can also call on the skills of specialists such as sensory scientists to define quality, legislation specialists to guide on labelling, food chemists to assess nutritional composition, and microbiologists to consider microbiological shelf life."