DSM Nutrition Innovation Center

In June 2011, the global life sciences and materials sciences company DSM opened a new nutrition innovation centre in Parsippany, New Jersey. DSM aims to increase its research and development capabilities by combining the expertise of both DSM Food Specialties and DSM Nutritional Products.

The multimillion dollar facility will be used for developing and testing new food products, dietary supplements, savoury, beverages, dairy, bakery and personal care products. It employs about 100 application specialists and marketing experts.

DSM took up the project to meet the increasing demand for innovative nutritional products. The company intends to provide R&D support to the customers with its global network of six networked application laboratories. DSM is also integrating its technical expertise with focus on the regional preferences of customers.

The nutritional innovation centre allows dietary supplement firms and food manufacturers to develop new products by supporting them at every stage of the development process. It also enables DSM to test new ingredients, optimise the production process, enhance product quality, and evaluate and analyse different products.

DSM Innovation Center design

The surface area of the facility is about 18,000ft². The facility houses fully equipped pilot plants, laboratories, dedicated customer application suites and state-of-the-art sensory analysis facilities.

It incorporates several sustainable features. The chairs in the conference hall are made of recycled plastic made from water bottles.

LED lighting and occupancy sensors are installed throughout the building. The floors of the restrooms used 40% recycled content, and the tiles and partitions were reused.

About 50% of the materials used for the lab floors were recycled content. The wall panel fabric of descriptive rooms used 49% recycled content. The floor and the fabric panels are Greenguard certified for lower volatile organic compound (VOC) emissions. The lab corridors used 100% recycled polyester for blue fabrics. The resin tops and casework also have high recycled content.

Technology and processing

The dietary supplement laboratory features a powder and granulation flow testing meter, a colorimeter, blister pack machine, tablet press, moisture analysis kit, a dry room and other advanced equipment. A pilot kit at the diary lab allows the clients to process and analyse different yogurt, ice creams and other dairy products. It is equipped with fermentation units, incubator, pasteuriser, colour matching machines, and moisture and fat analysis tools.

The savoury laboratory at the centre can process oil-less potato chips. The breads use 50% less sodium with the salt enhancers developed by DSM. The centre also has pilot facility for carbonated soft drinks development, and stability and turbidity testing equipments. Strict quality adherence is maintained across all the processes from the product concept stage to manufacturing and distribution.

New products

The application specialists at the Nutrition Innovation Center will work in close collaboration with the clients to develop new tailor-made products. The process will enable the food companies to avoid the industrial competition and meet the consumer demands.

Some of the new products developed by the centre include FloraGlo lutein prototype sports nutrition chocolate of Kemin and OPTISHARP (Zeaxanthin) of DSM for enhancing recovery, contrast and glare tolerance. A prototype beverage was developed for healthy skin, with proprietary mixture of carotenoids and vitamins. DSM markets some of these products globally through its distribution networks and directly to the customers.

With its global technical and scientific expertise and portfolio of ingredients, the company is able provide several premix blends to produce reliable, efficient, consistent and profitable products.

Construction

The project received credit approval in December 2009. Construction of the innovation centre was started in August 2010. The project was completed in 11 months and the lab was finalised in March 2011.

The architect and engineers of the project was GanFlec Architects and Engineers. About 26 contractors were involved in the project. The construction required about 17,000 man hours and recorded no injuries or incidents.