A purpose-built innovation and customer collaboration hub has been opened at CH Guenther’s flagship Coventry bakery.
The £38m bakery was opened at Lyon Park in 2023 to make burger buns exclusively for McDonald’s, and now produces around 72,000 buns an hour. CH Guenther (CHG) also operates two other UK sites, in Heywood in Lancashire and Banbury in Oxfordshire.
The company said the new 1,850 sq ft Centre of Excellence in Coventry had been designed to support CHG’s customers including leading global quick-service restaurants, foodservice operators and retailers as they develop new bakery products.
CHG said it had seen increasing demand for premium bakery products such as the potato bun – a roll made with enriched dough and either mashed potato or potato flour.
The company added that customers were also looking to include more free-from options and artisan-inspired goods, smaller portion sizes, and protein-rich products to cater to shifting consumer tastes.
The Centre of Excellence had been designed to enable products focused on these emerging demand trends to be developed in the innovation suite, demonstrated in the customer kitchen, evaluated through sensory testing, and then validated in the commercial-scale pilot bakery, before progressing to full-scale manufacture.
CHG pointed out that, being located at the Coventry site meant there would be no time lost between the initial pilot-scale innovation phase and commercial manufacturing.
“CHG’s new Centre of Excellence provides our customers partnership in innovation and developmental testing, ensuring ideas can move seamlessly from concept to commercial production, helping bring exciting new menu ideas to market more quickly, consistently and at scale,” said Paul Tripp, CHG European vice president and managing director.
“This investment is part of CHG’s long-term strategy to strengthen our growing relationships with leading food service brands through innovation, operational excellence and continued investment in our UK and EU manufacturing.”
He added that the company had been delighted by the initial feedback from customers.
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