SINGAPORE - DSM Nutritional Products has opened its Nutrition Innovation Centre for Asia Pacific at Mapletree Business City, part of Dutch firm DSM's $8.8 million premises here.
The facility was officially opened today at a ceremony attended by Ambassador of the Netherlands Mr Jacques Werner, Economic Development Board (EDB) chairman Beh Swan Gin and DSM managing board member Dr Stefan Doboczky.
In his remarks, Dr Beh noted that he had participated in the opening of DSM's regional headquarters here three years ago, and that DSM's expansion since then had required it to move to its new larger premises.
DSM is a Dutch firm globally active in the fields of health, nutrition and materials.Its nutrition business DSM Nutritional Products is a major business-to-business (B2B) supplier of ingredients such as vitamins and carotenoids.
At the event today, DSM Nutritional Products' Asia Pacific vice-president Mr Pieter Nuboer noted that Singapore had been chosen because of its infrastructure and established business ecosystem, as well as its multi-racial makeup, which would allow DSM's products to be tested within a diverse market.
The centre occupies a quarter of the 40,000 sq ft premises. It houses laboratories for the development of DSM's various nutritional products, including food and beverage products as well as dietary supplements.
These include juice and milk fortified with DHA to help children's brain development, cookies and smoothies with added oat fibre to improve heart health and supplements containing olive polyphenols with beauty benefits.
Working with the World Food Programme, DSM is also developing products targeted at poorer consumers at risk of malnutrition, such as rice with added nutrients.
The new centre also contains a so-called co-creation hub, where DSM will work with its customers to design new products in partnership with the Healthy Marketing Team, a marketing firm.
This will allow DSM to get involved in the supply chain of new products much earlier, said Mr Nuboer, who added that it would free it from the "procurement trap" of simply selling customers ingredients without being involved in product design.
