In the food and beverage industry, capitalizing on new scientific and business opportunities increasingly depend on the effective deployment of advanced digital technologies – such as artificial intelligence for fermentation and lab automation – to develop new solutions for food and beverages faster and more accurately.
In 2023, we further increased our investments in the digital transformation of our science and innovation capabilities for TTH, with a clear focus on being able to generate and combine consumer, customer, and technical data insights faster. This is with the dual aim of accelerating internal innovation processes and supporting our customers with faster availability of data useful to them.
Taste and Ingredient Solutions began joint research programs in 2023 in sugar reduction and plant-based products. Combining the taste and texture capabilities of both divisions enables us to address the challenges customers experience in reducing sugar and making alternative meat, fish, and dairy products tastier. For instance, our SmartProteins Masking solutions help make plant-based dairy more delicious. And with Smart TX PRO we can create the right mouthfeel, bite and chew to craft customers’ products to meet evolving consumer expectations.
Together with other leading foodtech companies and knowledge institutions in the Netherlands, dsm-firmenich was one of the founders of the Next Food Collective, a Dutch consortium that aims to accelerate the transition to sustainable food systems and healthy nutrition by driving the research agenda in this field and developing joint programs and projects.
Our science application efforts allowed us to launch several new innovative solutions. For example, in 2023 we launched the Delvo®Phage test kit for thermophiles (bacteria or other microorganism that grow best at above normal temperatures) and we launched new cultures for our fresh fermented range: Delvo®Fresh Pioneer for delicious yogurts with pH stability, and Delvo®Plant vegan cultures. In the brewing sector, Dual Brew was launched at BrauBeviale in Nuremberg (Germany) in November. Dual Brew is a diversified range of beer styles, both alcoholic and non-alcoholic, combining our enzyme technologies and flavor solutions. With the no/low alcohol revolution on the rise, our BeeR’Evolution concept enables customers to easily add a distinguishing signature twist to their no/low alcohol beverage.
