While food and beverage innovation and commercialisation speed are undoubtedly crucial factors in any market worldwide, Tate & Lyle believes that this is even more so when focusing on the market in Asia.
“The level of innovation and variety of tastes in this region are incomparable anywhere else in the world, and with everything that is going on here speed-to-market is more important to food and beverage manufacturers here than it is anywhere else in order to stay ahead,” Tate & Lyle Chief Executive Nick Hampton told FoodNavigator-Asia.
“At the same time, there are many factors that need to be considered and balanced before a product can go to market – Taste is king and the mouthfeel must be outstanding but it also needs to be healthy.
“It must be good value in these times of inflation; it must incite excitement in the consumers, but they also want to be able to trust and know what they are consuming, and they want to know that it is made sustainably.
“So there are many conflicting messages and as the industry players we need to consider all of these factors and ingredients when innovating, and being able to do this as quickly and efficiently as possible is more important now than ever before.
“We have launched our Automated Laboratory for Ingredient Experimentation (ALFIE) in response to these needs, one of the most advanced labs in the industry designed to accelerate the speed of product development.”
The multi-million dollar ALFIE will use industry-first new automated robotics systems and focus at this point on mouthfeel improvement for food and beverage products.
It is considered a global – not national or regional - investment by Tate & Lyle, as its capabilities can also be run from the firm’s other offices worldwide.
“ALFIE comprises of two systems, the first of which is sample preparation which will later be developed into prototype creation; and the second is characterisation tests, which can be run at around 10 times the current rate,” Tate & Lyle President Innovation and Commercial Development Victoria Spadaro Grant told the floor at the ALFIE opening ceremony.
“We estimate this to mean that product speed-to-market will be at least 10 times faster, but in reality given all the other parallel factors that come into play, we believe that overall it will actually be even faster, cutting innovation that would have taken months previously to weeks or even days.”
AI and manpower
At present, the lab mainly uses automated robotics as well as efficient connectivity and data analytics, but moving forward the company expects to also integrate artificial intelligence into its workings.
“We are definitely looking into connecting AI later into the lab and factories as this will be the next step to help us efficiently predict ingredients and improve performance, in order to work towards providing the fastest possible solutions,” Grant added.
“All in all, ALFIE is expected to be an end-to-end platform that will be able to handle important food and beverage industry needs from reformulation to improving mouthfeel to reducing sugars or fats and much more, whilst also ensuring the product remains competitive for consumers.”