IFF announced the completion of its new North American Creation and Design center in New Century, Kan.

The IFF Creative Center brings together the company’s flavor and ingredient expertise with its food design capabilities to better support the growth of the region’s food industry. The infrastructure upgrade includes the addition of two new flavor creation labs, the expansion of existing food application design labs for dairy, bars, culinary and bakery, and a new lab solely for pet food development.

The New Century facility is now the company’s second largest creative center in North America and houses 10 labs, and six state-of-the-art pilot plants, which serve two purposes: providing better customer support and enhancing innovative product development, the company stated.

“Our capability expansion in New Century provides a significant advantage to our customers,” said Carmen Cain, regional president for IFF’s Nourish division. “By integrating flavors, ingredients, and food design in one space, we can increase our speed-to-market while offering a breadth of knowledge and resources across multiple food categories. This investment strengthens our end-to-end IFF PRODUCT DESIGN approach in which we reimagine future-proof concepts and experiences by combining our expertise in ingredients and flavors with a deep understanding of consumer behavior.” 

The two new flavor creation labs – for sweet and savory flavors, respectively – mark the first time flavorists will be based at the New Century facility. The expert flavorists will develop alongside the dairy, bakery, bars, culinary and pet food product application and design teams.  

“Product development cycles are shorter today, so it’s essential to be nimble,” explains Debra Missel, regional creation & design director for North America. “Having flavorists on-site working side by side with our product application and food design experts enhances our ability to rapidly create total product solutions that address both functionality and taste. In fact, New Century has one of the largest dairy and cereal bar pilot plants in North America. This investment benefits our customers because it streamlines their development times, getting products to the shelf that much faster.” 

Another highlight is the addition of a dedicated lab to serve the North American pet food and pet treat segment, a strong category projected to generate $58 billion in 2023, according to Euromonitor. This is a first for the New Century Creative Center, it now enables pet food manufacturers to have full access to high-quality ingredients, flavors, and product design resources. 

IFF’s New Century Creative Center is positioned to provide best-in-class food product development support for its customers and to cultivate collaboration throughout the innovation process.