Oreo and Milka among products developed at Mondelēz Polish technical center
The facility, supported with a $17m investment, is located in Wroclaw, and is part of Mondelēz’s previously announced $65m investment in nine R&D hubs around the world.
When Mondelēz started the construction of Wroclaw center last year, the company originally estimated it would cost $15m.
Mondelēz said the technical center in Wroclaw is equipped with innovation labs, a pilot plant and a collaboration kitchen – totaling 9,500 square meters. It will eventually hire nearly 250 employees on site.
Advantages of Wroclaw
“The new center is exceptional on a European scale: its practical application of technology enables testing of research hypotheses in a setting as close to actual industrial conditions as possible,” Mondelēz’s spokesperson, Michael Mitchell, said.
“The selection of Wroclaw as the location for the technical center is not accidental,” he added. “Wroclaw is a modern city open to investment. It is home to leading technical universities and top-notch specialists.”
Poland is also home to Mondelēz’s seven other plants that manufacture products in three categories: chocolate, biscuit, and gum and candy, Mitchell said.
Offering well-being snacks
Mitchell told ConfectioneryNews building the Polish technical center is in line with Mondelēz’s business strategies in Europe, where the snack market has grown an average of 2.3% per year.
One of the strategies is developing well-being snacks, he said.
“We’re actively working to revamp our existing products and introduce new ones aligned with today’s definition of well-being, like Véa, our new well-being biscuit brand launching in July (2017).”
However, Mitchell mentioned that Véa is a US product, and it will not be developed specifically at Wroclaw.
Mondelēz has posted organic growth of 0.6% during Q1 this year, and it expects organic net revenue to increase at least 1% in 2017.
