After an investment of approximately  CHF 50 million (US$49.5 million), the Bühler Group has officially opened its CUBIC innovation campus with eight application centers. In the campus, the company is seeking to promote new professional skills and competencies, collaborations, modern learning and working methods, while also carrying out research into new and sustainable solutions  Every year, the company invests a sum in the three-digit millions in research and development (R&D). In 2018, this amounted to CHF 145 million or 4.4 percent of turnover.

“We are with this driving forward our strategy of innovation, training and development,” says Stefan Scheiber, CEO of Bühler Group. “Together with our customers, partners from industry and science, academia and start-ups, we are using the CUBIC to conduct research into new and sustainable solutions that we can apply to successful business ventures. And, we are taking a step forward here in providing modern training and development,” he adds. 

Speaking about the consumer trends the campus will address, Markus Reber, Media Relations Manager, tells FoodIngredientsFirst that they could be anything customers are willing to develop in the innovation center. He furthers highlights “meat alternatives for flexitarians that are produced with our processes, low-energy roasting for coffee, new flavors for chocolate, or healthy, high-protein pasta containing flour from pulses or products with a proportion of microalgae.”

Stefan Scheiber, CEO of Bühler Group. The global challenges associated with nutrition and mobility are becoming increasingly urgent. How can we sustainably feed and provide mobility for a population of nearly 10 billion in 2050? Addressing these issues and responding to them with sustainable, commercially attractive solutions is the goal of the innovation campus. “This is our contribution to transforming the urgent global challenges of our time into solid business solutions together with customers, partners, academia and start-ups,” continues Scheiber. 

The three-story CUBIC is designed to accommodate up to 300 people, and is, in itself, a model of sustainability and innovation. The building uses 15 percent less energy than comparable structures of its size. On the basis of this smart building concept, Bühler expects to be able to sustainably optimize the operation of the building. 

In terms of its design concept, the new innovation campus is integrated into the Bühler site in Uzwil as the bridge that links the development, engineering and design teams with the modernized Application Centers and the factory. This enables Bühler to develop solutions together with customers, start-ups and industry and research partners up to the point of market maturity with much higher speed and efficiency. 

Project teams from all Bühler business areas currently reside in the CUBIC. Many of them are developing digital solutions, including Bühler Insights, a cloud-based IoT platform for digital services, which was created in close partnership with Microsoft. about 20 percent of the R&D budget went into the development of digital solutions in 2018.

“The CUBIC campus will become the epicenter of our collaborative ecosystem,” says Chief Technology Officer Ian Roberts. “It embodies our innovation spirit and culture, wher we will inspire, discuss, understand, and derive actions that will support us as an industry to create more sustainable value chains, while contributing to addressing the burning environmental and societal challenges of our time.”

Shorter time to market thanks to the Application Centers
The new innovation campus comprises eight modernized Application Centers. The ideas of customers and prototypes are tested in the Application Centers, wher they are refined up to the point of market maturity.

In the Pasta Application Center, the latest pasta is being developed, for example high-protein pasta containing flour from pulses or products with a proportion of microalgae. The Grain Technology Center, at 3,000 square meters, is the world’s largest Grain Milling Application Center. It also has its own Analytics Lab. Among other things, the Nutrition Application Center develops textured vegetable proteins – alternatives for the growing number of flexitarians. Together with customers, the Bakery Innovation Center develops wholesome, fresh bakery products.

In the Chocolate Application Center, new flavors and novel processes for cocoa-based products are tested. In the Coffee Application Center, customers test low-energy roasting processes to develop new taste variants.