The challenge
Respond to growing global demand for healthy and sustainable food
FrieslandCampina wanted to be better able to respond to the growing global demand for healthy and sustainable food. In addition, the company was keen to help its employees work more efficiently and to get the public more involved in the products that FrieslandCampina has been producing for years.
FrieslandCampina decided that a new Innovation Center was the solution it was looking for. Arcadis developed the technical design, incorporating FrieslandCampina's sustainability ambitions into the plans. The building is Breeam-NL certified and the laboratories are also certified.
The FrieslandCampina Innovation Center in Wageningen can accommodate 450 workplaces, of which 350 are dedicated to research and development. The almost 20,000 m2 site houses a laboratory, taste-testing rooms, a test plant, facility rooms and offices. There is also an Experience Center with an innovation kitchen and a tasting bakery, where visitors and staff at FrieslandCampina can taste, smell and touch products. The center is strategically located on the campus of Wageningen University & Research Center, where 6500 employees and 10,000 students work to develop and research healthy nutrition and living environments.
By bringing all of its R&D activities together under one roof, lines of communication are shorter and FrieslandCampina's staff can cooperate more effectively. Another key advantage of working from a central location is that space is used more efficiently, which saves the company a great deal of energy. Furthermore, Wageningen is a global hub that is home to many knowledge institutes and companies that research food; in fact, Wageningen is also known as Food Valley. The FrieslandCampina Innovation Center is also ideally situated for cooperation with other relevant parties.