26 November, 2007 - With a new Russian factory in the pipeline, its own university and the opening of the company's most ambitious Innovation Centre, these are exciting times for Puratos, the world's number two ingredient maker for the bakery, patisserie and chocolate industries. FLEXNEWS spoke to CEO Daniel Malcorps about the firm's plans for expansion and its passion for improvement and innovation.
Growth through innovation and helping its clients tap into evolving customer trends around the world are two of the vital value-added traits that Puratos brings to the marketplace.
The Belgian company, a world leader in producing and supplying primary ingredients for the bakery, patisserie and chocolate industries, has almost 90 years experience and a growing presence in over 100 countries.
Constantly striving to improve and evolve its products, the Brussels-based outfit is targeting expansion in both its established markets in Europe and North America, as well as in host of emerging ones such as China, Brazil, and Russia, said Puratos CEO Daniel Malcorps.
Their strategy in Russia, which follows their successful approach elsewhere, is to enable their customers to meet consumer trends across individual cultures.
Although Puratos already has a presence there, the company sees in Russia a huge potential for growth. It is currently in the process of relocating its main plant from St Petersburg to Podolsk near Moscow, where it is now building a 14-million euro production facility.
The factory, which will manufacture a large range of products, should be operational by the middle of next year. The company has a sales office in the Russian capital and retains one in St Petersburg.
Puratos has plans to boost its Russian operations to take advantage of what the company describes as one of the biggest markets in the world. Growth areas in this market are in the high value breads and patisserie sectors which are expanding annually by between 5-10 pct.
Puratos said it expects to see significant expansion of its operation there in the next four years.
New Russian Factory Under Construction
Nowhere are the company’s values better summed up than in its 36 Innovation Centres spread out around the world.
The recent inauguration of Puratos’ latest and most advanced Innovation Centre in Brussels provides an ideal setting for its customers to road-test the company’s products, say the firm.
The state-of-the-art facility already hosts up to 2,000 professionals a month, who are all experts in their fields and customers of Puratos.
They come to the centre to work with the ingredients the company manufactures and give their authoritative feedback on how well they function.
The 2,000 sq m facility has an external structure made entirely from glass, maximising the amount of natural light flowing into the building to provide the best environment for evaluating the appearance of bread, cakes and chocolate.
Newest Innovation Centre in Brussels
Mr Malcorps explained: "Our specialists place at the disposal of our customers everything they need to create new products and new concepts.”
In order to maximise the benefits, the experts are provided with scientific knowledge, technical assistance, as well as information on market trends, statistical data and marketing concepts.
“It is a constant interaction. The world of baking, patisserie and chocolate is a wonderful world and it is a world of passion,” said Mr Malcorps.
“The people who come here are passionate and knowledgeable. Together we learn. Together we try to build better product for them.”
The Innovation Centre also contains the Puratos University and each new employee that joins the company has to graduate from there before they start their job. At the university, everyone from accountants to machine operators learns what the firm does so they understand its history, its goals and where they fit into the organisation.
Puratos CEO Daniel Malcorps
For the Belgian company, which has been operating since 1919, innovation and reliability are the two cornerstones of its philosophy, ideals that have helped growth surge ahead of its rivals.
Mr Malcorps said: “It is the history of the company to do that. We are very much focused on innovation. The signature of the company is reliable partners in innovation. We insist on those two aspects.”
Its ethos is clearly paying dividends as the company forecasts its 2007 turnover will be in the region of 950 million euro, up from 750 million euro in 2003.
Puratos is currently the world’s number two in its field, with annual growth of around eight per cent, three times higher than the market average.
Puratos makes ingredients for bakery and patisserie and chocolate producers. Its diverse product range includes sourdoughs, emulsifiers, enzymes, yeasts, bread improvers, bread mixes, couverture chocolates, chocolate fillings, fruit fillings, margarine, non-diary toppings, nuts and nut-based products, patisserie mixes and glazes.
An innovator for over half a century, Puratos invented the first ever bread improver in 1953, a development that revolutionised the industry.
The company said it doesn’t just try to think about what its own clients want but considers what the customers of its customers demand.
Mr Malcorps said: “One thing that makes us unique we always start with the final consumer in mind. We spend a lot of time investigating what they want and how our innovation can help our customers market their products to the final consumers.”
This approach sees the firm working with classical marketing tools such as qualitative analysis and the findings of focus groups as well as quantitative data collection. But that is not the end of the process, said the Puratos chief, who explained: “Then we go deeper into understanding the taste and visual aspect through sensory analysis, and adjust out product if we need to.”
Puratos has a global presence, selling its products in 120 countries. The group employs about 5,500 people. The company says while it has a global presence it realises the key to success is to think locally. So Puratos works hard to understand the different taste preferences worldwide.
“We believe bread and patisserie are very local products,” said Mr Malcorps
He added: “Bread is different everywhere in the world and we feel it is some kind of translation in food of the local culture.
“In order to be really successful, we have to be extremely close to local needs. We have global technology but we want to apply it locally everywhere we operate.”
To emphasize his point, Mr Malcorps explains: “With bread, for example, variations can be infinite. In England, people like soft bread but in France they prefer it crusty. Germans like rye based bread as opposed to wheat based in England and France
“The flavours that are appreciated in countries are different and we have, in the case of bread, developed sourdoughs tailored to the taste of the country or even a region within that country.”
In order to meet changing customer demands and spot new trends, Puratos has developed a sophisticated sensory analysis laboratory in a bid to measure subjective taste preferences objectively.
It has also developed a unique mobile variant of this in the form of the SensoBus. This double-decker bus has been transformed into a travelling laboratory with tasting rooms equipped with computers.
The facility can collect data from up to 300 consumers a day. Results are fed into computers and analysed to see what changes or improvements can be made.
Mr Malcorps is passionate about the tools. He said: “The complementarity of these two sensory analysis tools is an extraordinarily valuable source of knowledge for our customers.”
Unsurprisingly, Puratos is committed to Research and Development, spending between 2.5 pct – 10 pct of turnover, according to the needs of each division, in this area.
It has four separate but integrated levels of R&D, from laboratory researchers who seek to find the new ingredients that will form the foundation of innovative products to the research departments of each of the company’s three divisions.
When asked to list challenges for the future, Mr Malcorps is in no doubt that the company’s top priority is to continue recruiting talented employees.
He said: “We really believe the success of the company comes from its people. Attracting, retaining and developing talent in the company and unleashing their creativity is the key to everything we do.
“What makes the difference is the quality of people and knowledge in the company. We must be good partners for our customers.”