Olam SVI unveils IQ center

Olam Spices & Vegetable Ingredients (Olam SVI) launches its Innovation and Quality (IQ) center at company headquarters in Fresno, Calif., consolidating its research and development teams for dehydrated vegetables, frozen vegetables, tomato products and spices to one central location. The IQ will accelerate the development of value-added finished products that deliver on taste, functionality and clean processing by leveraging the expertise and ingredients across Olam SVI's entire portfolio.

With close proximity to the Company's Agricultural Research Center, the IQ builds upon Olam SVI's command of the full supply chain by linking seed breeding and product development with its operational base for sourcing raw materials and maintaining quality assurance.

"Through the IQ center, we can fully integrate product lines and elevate our offering from high-quality commodity ingredients to value-added formulations that include finished sauces and salsas," said Siva Subramanian, vice president of innovation and quality. "It is specially designed to facilitate learning and collaboration with our clients' R&D and quality teams, external laboratories and universities engaged in research and processing applications."

The IQ center consists of a product development kitchen, food chemistry laboratory and microbiology laboratory. The commercial kitchen allows for prototype development based on customer requirements and bench-scale testing of ingredients through baking, cooking, freezing and batch pasteurization. Measurement capabilities within the food chemistry lab include physical and chemical analysis, and chromatographic techniques to analyze color, texture, taste and quality parameters, ranging from simple moisture to complex flavor component analysis. The bio-safety level-2 microbiology laboratory is a central preventive and cause analysis resource for the mitigation of potential hazards in products.

Olam SVI controls the entire supply chain from origin to market, growing and sourcing quality vegetable and spice ingredients. This level of insight allows the company to meet changing consumer tastes through product innovation while providing accurate supply forecasts, proprietary market insights and unparalleled traceability for global food companies. The company has direct grower relationships and processing capabilities in major producing countries and leads the industry with its sustainable practices.