Ornua officially opened a new innovation centre on Tuesday morning in Chicago. The new innovation centre is the latest development by CoreFX Ingredients, a subsidiary business of Ornua’s, which was acquired last year for a figure believed to be in the region of €5m. CoreFX works with US food manufacturers and foodservice customers to produce high-value dairy, cheese and powder ingredients for snack foods, sports nutrition, soups, infant nutrition and desserts. The business is understood to have sales in the region of €15m.

Ornua says the development of this new innovation centre will have an R&D lab and test kitchen, which will allow CoreFX to design ingredients specifically to meet customer needs. Ornua says it is also in the process of expanding the company’s warehouse facilities by a further 10,000sq ft at its Orangeville manufacturing site in Illinois.

“The opening of the innovation centre at CoreFX marks a key milestone in its exciting growth journey and greatly improves its capability and ability to create innovative ingredients solutions that meet customer needs,” according to Ornua chief executive Kevin Lane.