The firm recently launched its new Regional Biscuit and Baked Snacks Lab and Innovation Kitchen located in Singapore, with the aim of boosting bakery product innovation for the Southeast Asia and Australia, New Zealand and Japan markets.
“Bakery is such an important category for us in this region, which is the reason why we decided to make this US$5mn investment into establishing the new facility here in Singapore,” Mondelez VP R&D AMEA, Biscuit Category Leader Marco Michielsen told FoodNavigator-Asia at the launch event.
“We want to specifically target the innovation of biscuits and baked snacks in this region by being closer to consumers to understand struggles and compromises they have to make when choosing their snacks.
“The importance and relevance of bakery is very high here due to strong demands we already see for snacks that are ‘baked not fried’ – as it is, many companies are looking to move into this category due to the correlation of this making for a healthier snack.
“The main point here is to provide a wide variety and specific combinations of delicious and nutritious options for consumers across all market channels against specific price points, a key strategy to ensure accessibility and affordability as this is the only way to empower them to snack healthy.”
The facility comprises of multiple labs with separate specialisations, including one on product localisation and an innovation kitchen with an on-site chef.
“It is important to remember the relevance of snacking in Asian markets, South East Asia in particular, where by 2030 50% of consumers will be Gen Z and Gen Alpha” he added.
“Many of them will move to cities [and take on busier lifestyles], which means they will require more and more products focused on convenience [which is where snacking comes into play] - and many consumers in this group have an over-indexed interest in health and sustainability so we need to keep that in mind too.”
Art and science combinations
A key theme in the facility’s innovation strategy is the merging of art and science for fusion bakery development, highlighting the need for both in bakery innovation so as to remain relevant to consumers.
The ‘art’ of this innovation falls to Mondelez’s in-house chef whose task is to make fusion baked snacks combining traditional flavours with more modern snack formats, from rendang croissants to pandan financiers.
The science on the other hand comes from the various bakery technologies and equipment available in the new facility, from rotary mould machines to develop specialised cookies requiring very detailed patterns such as Oreo; to lamination technology that compresses multiple layers to make flaky biscuits such as Ritz and Jacob’s.
“The availability of all of these [components that can fuse art and science] is crucial to enabling more localised and affordable bakery product innovations that are applicable to even more consumers in this market,” Michielsen said.