Food union to invest half a million euro in a unique experimental pilot plant

In 2014 Food Union, the leading dairy production company in Latvia, is planning to invest half a million euro in building a unique experimental pilot plant aimed making development and testing of new, innovative products and ice cream – one of the Food Union’s strategical priorities in the coming years – more effective and faster. Food Union will be the first dairy production company in the Baltics to build a pilot plant of state-of-the-art machinery and broad functionality.

“Up to now we used labs of raw material suppliers to develop new product recipes and the high-powered production equipment of the company to produce test volumes which was a costly and lengthy process. In order to cut costs of developing new, innovative products and accelerate the development process we decided to invest half a million euro in a modern pilot plant that would handle the whole cycle of development from A to Z. Thanks to it [the pilot plant] Food Union will be able to develop new products even more dynamically and save dozens of thousands of euros a year. By building the experimental pilot plant Food Union will strengthen its leadership position in the region in the area of innovative dairy product manufacturing,” Sergejs Beshmelnickis (Sergejs Beshmeļņickis), Director General of Food Union, explains.

The experimental pilot plant will consist of new generation technological machinery fully imitating the processes of dairy production. Its task is to develop and improve new, innovative dairy products and ice cream in small volumes and in short term. The pilot plant will ensure unlimited development and testing of dairy products such as yoghurt, fermented milk products, cream cheese, spreadable cheese, whipped desserts and ice cream recipes and improve production technologies.

“In March Food Union presented a unique product in the Baltic region – RASA sweet cream cheeses with raspberries and cookies. The development process of this product lasted nearly one year and investment into developing a unique recipe and technologies amounted to over 10,000 euro. Thanks to the experimental pilot plant development of similar products will take 2 to 4 months and cut costs of the development process 5 times,” Aleksandrs Majorovs, Head of the R&D Department of Food Union, adds.

Building of the experimental pilot plant has been commenced on AS Rigas piena kombinats premises and it is expected to be completed by July. The pilot plant will employ the best employees of R&D Department, AS Rigas piena kombinats.