Strategically located in the heart of Europe, its mission is to support the group’s industrial customers in the development of new products and processes.

The latest addition to an international network of more than 40 Baking Centers around the world, the Vienna Baking Center, operational since early 2019, is the first entirely dedicated to the group’s industrial customers. This new facility will, the company says, enable Lesaffre to enhance the services offered to its industrial customers, thus opening important development opportunities in Europe.

“In this new Baking Center – suited to industrial scale pilot trials - we offer our customers and partners the possibility to carry out tests on our premises by simulating their own conditions and constraints, and without disrupting their productions. This will allow us to develop tailor-made solutions with them,” said Jérôme Lebriez, President of the Oriental and Central Europe Area at Lesaffre.

The Baking Center houses what Lesaffre describes as an ultra-modern pilot industrial bakery, built around four zones: a dough preparation zone, a shaping zone, a cold treatment zone with a forced-air freezing cell, and finally a baking zone. In addition, there is a “laboratory” area dedicated to evaluating the quality of finished products (shelf life, preservation, texture, etc.).

“Innovation is part of the company’s genes and will be one of the keys to meeting the many challenges of tomorrow. We want to help our customers by co-developing with them technical and industrial solutions that meet their own innovation needs. Setting up this Baking Center in the heart of a region that plays such an important role in the evolution of food trends is essential for Lesaffre,” said Antoine Baule, CEO of Lesaffre.

The creation of this pilot scale Baking Center is said to be fully in line with Lesaffre’s strategic priorities of innovation and customer service. Lesaffre has been present in Austria since 1996. The site of Lesaffre Austria, located in the neighbourhood of this new industrial Baking Center, is dedicated to the distribution of baker’s yeast and to the production of bakery ingredients.