Dr. Schär inaugurates a new state-of-the-art R&D pilot plant in Trieste
Dr. Schär has taken another step in its innovation strategy applied to specialised nutrition with the inauguration, close to the Dr. Schär R&D Centre at Area Science Park in Trieste, of a high-tech pilot plant designed to be used also with artificial intelligence to accelerate product development and optimise the transition from research to industrial production. The facility will support the company’s main business areas, from gluten-free products to medical nutrition, while strengthening the role of the Centre as the company’s international reference point for innovation.
Built with an investment of approximately €1.2 million, the new pilot plant covers an area of 453 square metres and is fully wired and digitalised. The facility makes it possible to collect and analyse, in an integrated manner, the data generated by the different machines, enabling a significant evolution in the way formulations are developed and validated. In this context, technological development and a strong commitment to sustainability come together to support the evolution of processes and ensure increasingly high quality standards, in line with the vision of the South Tyrol-based company: transforming specialised nutrition into an everyday experience capable of combining science, safety and the pleasure of food.
“This investment represents a significant step in the evolution of our innovation model because it enables us to strengthen, in a tangible way, the integration and continuity between research and industrial development. Our goal is to accelerate the transformation of knowledge into solutions that can be applied on an industrial scale and to further expand the potential of our activities by anticipating the future needs of specialised nutrition and contributing to driving its evolution worldwide,” said Virna Cerne, Senior Director of Global Research & Development, Dr. Schär R&D Centre.
The new pilot plant becomes part of a well-established and highly specialised ecosystem. Opened in 2003, the Dr. Schär R&D Centre brings together a team of 35 researchers engaged in the development of new products and technologies, with expertise ranging from food chemistry and biotechnology to raw material research and the implementation of agronomic projects. Its activities also include the identification of packaging solutions and the sensory evaluation of products, supported by dedicated panels. The Centre supports every stage of the innovation process, from prototype design through to scaling-up across the company’s 12 production plants, including intermediate-scale testing to verify and optimise formulations before industrial production.
“This integrated approach allows us to fully leverage the multidisciplinary expertise of our team, to work across increasingly broad and complex application areas, and to progressively expand the scope of our activities,” continues Cerne. “In this way, we are able to put our scientific and technological knowledge at the service of different nutritional needs, developing increasingly targeted and effective solutions that respond to people’s real needs.”
Alongside the gluten-free market, in which the company is the global leader, research also extends to medical nutrition, including the development of low-protein products for kidney disease and nutritional solutions for ketogenic diets used in the treatment of drug-resistant epilepsy and metabolic disorders, as well as new and emerging areas of nutritional application.
This ongoing commitment has resulted in a solid body of know-how, reflected in 15 patent families (43 individual patents), and in an integrated approach that combines nutritional quality, safety, taste and sustainability throughout the entire value chain.