Raising the bar on innovation

CHR. HANSEN has every reason to keep a bullish outlook this year. The global bioscience company whose focus is on cultures & enzymes, health & nutrition and natural colours, has seen sales go up 8 to 10 per cent in 2012. In a recent interview, its top executives expressed confidence in increasing business by the same percentage points globally this year, citing collaboration and partnership with key industry stakeholders, research and innovation, and quality products as main drivers of growth. Whilst acknowledging challenges in certain markets and pockets of political unrest that affect business in certain areas, the company remains optimistic that its presence in Asia, Europe, South America, North America and the rest of the world will continue to keep business buoyed.

Carsten Hellmann, executive vice president for Global Sales, summarised his company’s focus as simply to “think about how our customers can become more successful and work with them on projects”. Incidentally, the firm has more than 2,000 active projects around the globe. Mr Hellmann explains that such collaboration may come in the form of brand development, either by helping companies develop some adjacent products or showing them how other companies have done theirs, developing production plan, packaging, marketing, and so on, to help expand a particular brand

"We’re getting bigger and starting to control the quality and the production systems. We’re also taking bigger responsibilities for the whole value chain and working with governments, the food companies and the consumers to get better products to them at the right price"  -Carsten Hellmann, executive vice president for Global Sales

Another approach is for Chr. Hansen to help customers innovate, not just by coming up with something that has never been seen before but also by developing a product that can replace some artificial ingredient, for instance, and launch it with phytonutrients.

A third approach is to go in and help customers become more effective either through high-yield products or through productivity improvement. It is through such efforts that the company can “outperform the market”.

“We’re not just following the market. We’re helping our customers become more successful either with their cost position or their market position,” Mr Hellmann explains.

Staying close to the market

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