Dive Brief:
- Diamond Foods has opened the doors to its new Salem, OR, innovation center, which is comprised of an R&D kitchen and laboratory as well as "a concept room designed for ideation and customer meetings and a sensory evaluation center for real-time product testing with consumers," Food Business News reported.
- The company will bring together a wide range of disciplines at the innovation center to cover all bases of product research, development, and innovation, including food scientists and sensory specialists as well as experts in marketing, packaging, and regulatory issues.
- The more than 7,000-square-foot facility is situated adjacent to one of the company's Kettle brand potato chips factories.
Dive Insight:
Diamond Foods can use this innovation center to improve its performance in some segments as reported in its third quarter earnings, which included a 2.5% dip in net sales, 0.3% decrease in net sales for snacks, and 5.8% decrease in net sales for nuts. The company has already made some headway in innovation with some of the developments in its snack business announced earlier this year, including expanding distribution for Kettle brand chips to the West Coast through a partnership with Snyder's-Lance and emphasizing Diamond Foods' contributions to organic and natural foods.
Now is a great time for Diamond Foods to invest in snack innovation, as the industry is seeing significant growth — to $47.5 billion by 2015, up from $34.2 billion a decade ago. The company's decision to focus on healthier snacks is especially well-timed as healthy snackers make up the largest category of snackers, according to a recent white paper, "Snacker Nation."
The new facility has already drawn interest from customers.
"We are not just putting a stake in the ground, but an entire foundation and infrastructure committed to innovation and market leadership, as well as an experienced forward-thinking team to take advantage of it," said Brian Driscoll, Diamond Foods president and CEO. "Several retail customers have already visited the innovation center for joint collaboration meetings and recognize the potential for new product development this facility and the team affords."