Construction has been completed on the newly expanded Baking Center at Lesaffre Yeast Corporation’s North American headquarters in Milwaukee. The newly constructed addition, providing an additional 1,500 square feet of new space, will be home to a state-of-the-art formulation lab within the Baking Center and also home to Bio Springer’s first Culinary Center in North America. Each are expected to be fully operational by August and fall of this year respectively.

Since its inception by the Lesaffre Group in 1974, the Baking Center has been a unique resource to the baking and ingredients industries as a place for expertise, technology and innovation. Lesaffre’s Baking Center, which is the only one of its kind in the United States, serves as a destination and resource for bakers and those in the ingredients industries seeking consultation, training and technical support in the use, application and development of baking ingredients.

Built to support Lesaffre’s growing baking ingredients business, the formulation lab is the company’s first in North America. The lab will be home to several of Lesaffre’s formulation experts who will work on the development of a variety of baking ingredients including: dough conditioners, yeast foods, enzymes and dough blends, as well as clean label and organically formulated products. The new formulation lab will provide the ability to formulate in the U.S. rather than in France where Lesaffre’s other lab resides. Being able to conduct formulation services in North America means the company will be able to bring new products to North America with greater speed and react to changes in the industry.

“A central goal of the new formulation lab is to be able to more quickly respond to the demands of our customers, so we can remain at the forefront of formulating leading quality baking ingredients for the industry,” says Arnaud Deniaud, Director of Technical Services and New Product Development for Lesaffre North America.

Similarly, the newly constructed Bio Springer Culinary Center is also the result of bringing services that Lesaffre originated in France to the United States for the purpose of better serving the demands of customers in North America. The Culinary Center will expand the capabilities of Bio Springer North America, the Lesaffre Group’s global manufacturer and marketer of yeast-derived products for the food, pet and biotech industries. The new Culinary Center will serve as a hub for the development and improvement of yeast extract products, training and tech support for their customers.

As a fully operational kitchen, the Culinary Center is equipped to meet the growing needs of Bio Springer’s customers and react to new trends in their evolving industry. By bringing the center’s advanced capabilities to the U.S., Bio Springer will be able to more efficiently create new products for North American customers, shortening the amount of time between initial research and development to product launch considerably. In addition, collaboration will be a cornerstone to the new center, not only enabling collaboration between Bio Springer and their customers, but also between their counterparts in the Baking Center.

“A major differentiating factor for our North American Culinary Center is that it shares the space with the Baking Center. As a great advantage, we’ll be able to collaborate, share ideas and bring additional resources to our customers that can also benefit from the capabilities of the Baking Center and their team of experts, ” says Jessica Vogel, Marketing Manager for Bio Springer North America.