FDBusiness.com

Nestlé has celebrated the 10th year anniversary of its Nestlé Professional Beverage Centre in Orbe, Switzerland, the company’s R&D facility entirely dedicated to its out-of-home beverage business. The ceremony was attended by Stefan Catsicas, Chief Technology Officer, Head of Innovation, Technology, Research and Development, and Martial Rolland, CEO of Nestlé Professional.

The event demonstrated how the Nestlé Professional beverage business today uses innovative two way digital communication with customers and consumers. Inside new generation beverage machines such as Nescafé Milano 2 and Nescafé Alegria 2, operators can now use digital platforms and new technology to increase interactive communication. A demonstration at the company’s Beverage Centre showed how, for example, a coffee machine located in a restaurant can be updated remotely by an operator located in the head-office in just a few seconds to serve a perfectly layered Latte Macchiato tailored to local-specific taste profiles.

Martial Rolland, CEO of Nestlé Professional, the Nestlé business that supplies the food service out-of-home industry, said: “The ‘Internet of Things’ is creating a new dawn in terms of customer and consumer connectivity and interactive communication. There are many possibilities. Connected customers can now benefit from a series of new online features, such as menu management, monitoring beverage consumption and promotions management. And, thanks to telemetry, our customers can access real-time performance data, allowing them to run their businesses in a more efficient manner and make better facts and insights-based business decisions.”

Specific display rooms at the Centre were dedicated to the “Science, Art and Technology” of beverage creation. Exhibitions and live demonstrations highlighted how Nestlé takes advantage of Swiss research and development expertise for the design, manufacturing and digital connectivity of the new generation machines.

Stefan Catsicas, Nestlé’s Chief Technology Officer, concluded: “In addition to the Nestlé Professional Beverage Centre, our Orbe site here in Switzerland site hosts a number of other units, including our Systems Technology Centre, our Beverages Product Technology Centre, Cereal Partners Worldwide and our Nescafé and Nespresso factories. This cluster of experience and expertise creates both synergies and economies of scale, helping to accelerate innovation and integrate it into exciting new products and systems. These centres are part of a wider worldwide network of 39 dedicated R&D units spearheading Nestlé’s aim to be the world’s leading company in Nutrition, Health and Wellness.”