Kraft Foods has opened a £17 million research and development facility at the home of Cadbury in Birmingham.
Facilities at the Global Centre of Excellence for Chocolate Research and Development in Bournville will include innovation labs, a pilot plant and a development kitchen. The centre will also be used to develop new products for other Kraft brands such as Milka and Toblerone.
The investment comes as the company said it will hire an extra 100 R&D staff in the UK, with 44 of those to be based at Bournville.
Kraft Foods said it had also expanded its Reading Science Centre, which tests and researches new products for the company's markets around the world, and boosted R&D at its Banbury facility.
Commenting, David Willetts, the UK’s minister of state for Universities and Science, said: "This significant investment from Kraft Foods is very welcome news and shows the company's commitment to maintaining a strong research and development base in the UK.
"It will help drive long-term, sustainable growth as well as supporting hundreds of high tech jobs in both Birmingham and Reading."
Jean Spence, executive vice president of Research, Development and Quality at Kraft Foods said: "Our success is driven by continued investment in R&D, which we've shown supports growth across our global chocolate business. This is why I am so pleased to officially open the Kraft Foods Global Centre of Excellence for Chocolate R&D in Bournville and the expanded Reading Science Centre.
"Two of our global and one of our regional centres of excellence are based here in the UK—making it a centre for world-class R&D and a significant part of our global R&D network.”
She concluded: “We are committed to continued investment in R&D in the UK and for the whole business across the globe, making us an increasingly nimble and dynamic organisation."
