|
WHILE many people start their day with a cup of coffee, experts at
Nestle’s Research and Development Center in Tours, France, spend
theirs making sure that the best beans go into your cup of Nescafe.
For over two decades, the Center has improved
the quality of the brand while helping coffee farmers around the
world achieve their yields. It is at the core of Nestle’s
commitment to continuously improve products to meet consumer needs
for health and wellness through an open R&D system, which
provides the technologies that ensure the quality and sustainability
of plant raw material supply.
The varieties developed here have superior
performance in terms of their productivity in the field and they are
selected for disease or drought tolerance—all valuable qualities
for farmers of any plant. The selected trees produce fine coffee
beans for an excellent cup quality. Their methods of producing and
distributing coffee varieties also guarantee a high level of
consistency, which leads to higher and better yields overall. This
translates into better income for farmers.
The result of all these efforts ultimately ends
up in your mug, so your coffee tastes as it should.
For its significant contributions to the coffee
industry, the R&D Center in Tours was recently recognized by the
French Minister of Agriculture and Fisheries as a leading example of
industrial plant biotechnology in France.
It mainly focuses on coffee and cocoa and is
composed of a diverse group of scientists headed by Dr. Pierre Broun.
Coffee research in the Center aims at developing
the desired coffee qualities like taste and aroma while ensuring
that the varieties deliver superior performance to the farmer.
The Center has built a significant portfolio of
patents to its name, and pens many publications every year in
respected, peer-reviewed science journals.
The Center also plays a major role in
Nescafe’s efforts in the area of sustainable agriculture. The
high-yielding coffee varieties it produces are distributed in
countries where Nestle supports the development of coffee growing
such as Thailand, Mexico, Indonesia, and here in the Philippines.
The company expects more coffee and cocoa producing countries to
benefit in the future.
|
