Opening the Gateway to Innovation

Anyone familiar with the blending of practical knowledge and abilities rooted in food science, technology and the culinary arts—what the Atlanta-based Research Chefs Association has dubbed Culinology®—knows firsthand the synergistic benefits of cross-disciplinary professional pursuits. Individuals who cultivate a progressively wide-ranging skill set bring more to the table when it comes to menu and product development.

Such sentiments seamlessly translate from individuals to companies. Over the last decade, the food industry has increasingly seen companies gather together resources and capabilities in such a way that they can effectively transform into one-stop ideation, R&D and supplier shops, instantly solving a formerly complicated puzzle. By adding in-house capacities for each piece of that puzzle—such as food science, technology, culinary arts, sensory analysis, marketing, etc.—an ingredient manufacturer and supplier instantly gains a competitive edge.

One key aspect of this veritable one-stop shop these days is what is generally dubbed the “innovation center.” These showpiece facilities can often serve multiple functions, from day-to-day test-kitchen experimentation to interactive demonstrations, client meetings, gold-standard recipe development, applied sensory science, and pilot-plant runs—and often a combination of such disciplines. And they often have a slick, professional, technologically savvy feel that begs for television cameras and Food Network airtime.

MEAT SCIENCE, MEET CULINARY

One of the most-recent additions to the growing list of innovation centers opened on Feb. 26, 2009 at Wixon’s corporate campus in St. Francis, WI, just outside the city limits of Milwaukee and a stone’s throw from Lake Michigan. The $2 million, 4,200-sq.-ft. facility, known as the Innovation Center for Culinary & Meat Processing, houses a commercial-grade kitchen (with a full range of appliances, griddles, charbroilers, and refrigeration units), a presentation and conference area, and a meat pilot plant (with a chilled processing room, smokehouse, batch oven, grinders, stuffers, patty makers, walk-in freezers and coolers, linear cook line, batter and breading system, and vacuum packaging and tray-overwrap system). Wixon Corporate Chef Judson McLester will helm the culinary side of the facility, while Ron Ratz, director of protein development, will head up the meat pilot plant.