Fuji Oil opens US$4m R&D centre in Singapore

FOOD manufacturing supplier, Fuji Oil, on Thursday officially opened its US$4 million Asia Research & Development (R&D) Center in Singapore. The facility is dedicated to creating safe, tasty and healthy food products for Asian markets and is Fuji Oil's first R&D facility outside of Japan.

Located next to Fuji Oil Singapore's existing application centre at Singapore Science Park II, the 1,900 square metre facility will become a platform for mutual technological exchange with Fuji Oil's global R&D teams.

Fuji Oil, which manufactures food ingredients and products such as oil and fats, margarine, cream and chocolates, has selected Singapore to establish this facility to leverage the country's position as the hub of Asia to springboard its business to South-east Asia, the greater Asian region including India, the Middle East and African markets.

"The R&D Center will be equipped with state-of-the-art facilities to enable our researchers to breed new ideas, spawn new technologies and generate new pipelines of food products," Hiroshi Shimizu, president & CEO of Fuji Oil Group said.

Thien Kwee Eng, Singapore Economic Development Board's assistant managing director, said that with its new centre, Fuji Oil is well-positioned to support customer packaged food and food service companies in developing new products that meet the diverse taste and preferences of Asian consumers, granting greater physical access to more consumers in the region.

"This is in line with Singapore's vision to be the leading location in Asia where top consumer packaged goods companies can grow their global brands and develop products to meet the needs of Asian consumers," she said.