Arla Foods' innovation centre for milk and whey

Arla Foods has revealed it plans to build a €36.3 million (about AU$58.4 million) innovation centre in Nr. Vium, Denmark, to develop new ways of using milk and whey.

The 9000 m² facility, part of Arla Foods Ingredients (AFI), will include open office spaces, labs and a pilot plant. It will be a hub for research and development innovation focusing on creating healthy and sustainable products to serve the needs of the world’s growing population.

Peder Tuborgh, CEO of Arla Foods, said: “We know that dairy nutrition can play an important role in securing a healthy and balanced diet for people across the world, and with this innovation centre we will use cutting-edge research and technology to explore milk and whey to their full potential as ingredients for a wide range of nutrition.”

The new facility — which is expected to open in 2021 — supports the company’s strategic focus on innovation and follows the opening of its Arla Innovation Centre (AIC) in Skejby, Denmark, last year.

“Our focus is to explore all the components in the milk and whey and combine them to enhance the nutritional or functional value of a product. Together with our customers, we will explore this even further in our new innovation centre to help them develop new products that meet the specific nutritional needs of children, athletes, patients and consumers,” said Henrik Andersen, Group Vice President in AFI.

It will be located in close proximity to AFI’s Danmark Protein production site, where scientists, technicians and innovators will explore advanced separation technologies to isolate specific components of the whey or milk, and heat treatment and pasteurisation technology to improve functionality and shelf life.

There are currently 70 employees working on innovation in AFI, but the centre will open up more opportunities, employing up to 90 people.

“The colleagues working with innovation in AFI are among the most talented in the world and it is our ambition to continue to attract the very best calibre of colleagues that share our mission of discovering and delivering all the wonders whey can bring to people’s lives. This will be an exciting place to work with the most challenging development projects in the dairy industry,” Andersen said.

Image credit: ©stock.adobe.com/au/Marek