After more than two years of anticipation, our partners at IFF Health & Biosciences celebrated the opening of their beautiful new offices and laboratories in Leiden, the Netherlands last week. The new site, which opened its doors in the middle of the COVID-19 pandemic, houses 180 employees from almost all Health & Biosciences businesses together with state-of-the-art scientific laboratories. On 19 May, over 250 customers, partners, and employees visited, toured, and enjoyed the festivities of the Leiden Grand Opening celebration. Terry Wiggill, managing director of Chemuniqué, was honoured to attend the function in person last week.
“After two years of ever-changing lockdown regulations related to the COVID-19 pandemic, I really feel privileged to have travelled internationally to meet up with old – and new – colleagues for this auspicious occasion and to interact with people operating at the highest level of science,” says Terry.
One of my main takeaways from the presentations and the tour of the laboratories is the speed and extent of scientific development that has occurred recently. In fact, the majority of what is happening in these laboratories today wasn’t even possible five years ago! That makes me so excited about the opportunities we are creating to better serve our customers and improve efficiencies in food production into the future.
Terry Wiggill, managing director of Chemuniqué
Leiden has long been an important location for the Health & Biosciences businesses, as far back as 1999 when Genencor established a European headquarter in Leiden. The inspiration for the new building started several years ago as the business outgrew its former Leiden home. The vision for this facility was more than just a bigger office; it was for an innovation space in which Health & Biosciences could develop world-changing technologies, serve customers, and attract the brightest and best people to join this team of leading scientists. In mid-2019, the team broke ground for the new site, located in the Leiden Bio Science Park and, in early 2020, during the height of COVID-19 pandemic, the new office and laboratory site opened; however, due to restrictions on in-person gatherings, there were minimal employees able to enjoy the site.
An energised and excited crowd of 250 attendees was on-hand for the celebration of the Grand Opening on last week.. Simon Herriott, president of Health & Biosciences, officially opened the building, followed by an inspiring message about the future of IFF and Health & Biosciences from Frank Clyburn, chief executive officer of IFF. The guests were then invited to listen to inspirational talks by Sharief Barends, Naty Behabtu, Frits Goedegebuur, and Jen Mangus Eiken, and take tours of the building and laboratories, which showcased how the biotechnology solutions created in Leiden have a direct impact on some of the most pressing societal issues of today.
“We have learned that, with the increasing pace and cost of innovation, to be successful we have to develop our products in an end-to-end and open environment with you, our customers. This building, designed to be an open, welcoming space for scientific collaboration, is where we create value, where we do both fundamental molecular biotechnology and cutting-edge application development and where we meet the needs of our customers and your customers.”
Simon Herriott, president of IFF Health & Biosciences
The new building follows the Building Research Establishment Environmental Assessment Method (BREEAM) to reach the highest sustainability standards. This includes cold-heat storage with heat pumps, solar panels on the roof, LED lighting for all laboratories and offices, high flexibility with column-free floors and modular partition walls, and ecological measures to create an environmentally friendly surrounding.
Chemuniqué is proud to partner with IFF’s Health and Biosciences division in bringing you the best unique nutritional solutions to improve the efficiency of livestock production in sub-Saharan Africa.
You can read more about IFF’s merger with DuPont Nutrition and Biosciences here.
Robyn Joubert is the marketing manager at Chemuniqué, contact Robyn at 074 252 3333 / robyn@chemunique.co.za.