Nestlé Professional opens new Davigel centre in France

Nestlé Professional today opened a new centre under the Davigel brand to provide an interactive and specialist learning environment for the food service industry.

The Davigel Culinary Training and Expertise Centre (CTEC) aims to help chefs develop a comprehensive set of professional skills, and create a better understanding of changing food legislation and food safety requirements.

To further extend its Out of Home strength in the food service industry, Nestlé Professional invested EUR 8 million (over CHF 10.2 million) in the Dieppe-based centre to also provide an opportunity for chefs to enhance their nutrition knowledge and marketing abilities.

In addition, Davigel – a leading provider of frozen and chilled food solutions to the Out of Home category – has an on-site 15-member culinary team who will work with chefs to create tailor-made food ranges, and customised meal and menu solutions adapted to changing lifestyles, such as the need to reduce the time from order to service.

The centre was officially opened by Sandrine Hurel, Deputy of Seine Maritime and General Council of Dieppe; José Lopez, Executive Vice President for Nestlé, for Operations and GLOBE; and Marc Caira, Chief Executive Officer of Nestlé Professional.

Jean-Marie Gurné, Regional Business Head for Nestlé Professional B2B Europe; and Frédéric Fanton, Regional Business Manager for Davigel Europe, also attended the event.

Mr Caira emphasised that the new Davigel centre will allow Nestlé Professional customers to accelerate their business growth and development.

He said: “The CTEC will provide the necessary training and advice to enable customers to effectively deliver high-quality, nutritional solutions to their clients, covering thousands of Out of Home meal outlets across France and Europe.

“We have crafted a learning environment where we can work closely with our customers on food design, training and the provision of specialised business advisory services. We are particularly pleased to offer the services of this top-class culinary training centre to managers of our independent commercial and institutional restaurants, who mostly don’t have the critical mass to organise this by themselves.”

The new centre follows on from successful pilot training programmes that were launched in 2010 at Davigel’s head offices in Dieppe, which totalled 3,000 hours of training. The fully operational centre now aims to quadruple training hours to 12,000 in 2011, and to total 18,000 hours in 2012.

Constructed with a state-of-the-art design to manage rainwater usage, solar panel installation, and energy preservation – the new centre also illustrates the Company’s commitment to environmental sustainability.

Davigel
Davigel – which was founded in 1963 – delivers meals to 10,000 restaurants each day, manufactured in its three factories located in France.

In line with Nestlé’s Creating Shared Value strategy, more than one third of Davigel’s fish range is certified by the Marine Stewardship Council (MSC).

Nestlé Professional
The Nestlé Professional beverages division provides the commercial and institutional restaurant industry with branded hot and cold non-carbonated drink solutions under brands such as Nescafé, Coffee-mate, Nesquik, Nestea and Nestlé.

The Nestlé Professional food division offers branded food solutions under brands such as Chef, Davigel and Maggi, to the commercial and institutional restaurant industry.

Globally, Nestlé Professional is present in more than 90 countries – with over 10,000 employees including a large number of skilled chefs – operating 14 food service factories, culinary centres, and the Nestlé Professional Beverage Centre in Switzerland.