FrieslandCampina Ingredients – evolving with customer needs for value-added ingredients

Ask any member of a B2B company what a key metric for success is and ‘customer satisfaction’ is guaranteed a position in the top three. This is especially true when that company is in the midst of implementing a structural change within the brand, as is the case for FrieslandCampina Ingredients.

In the B2B dairy ingredients sector specifically, the business has evolved beyond traditional demand-supply customer relationships, to solutions driven by expertise and specific value-adding ingredients. Among other things, this emerging trend implies that the boundary between how people interact with brands as end-consumers and as B2B customers is blurring.

In a recent customer survey we conducted, we looked at these evolving customer needs in more depth. Around 850 customer contacts were interviewed by phone and asked to rate several aspects of the business, such as ‘how satisfied are you, also taking competitors into account’ and ‘how likely is it that you would recommend us’.

Looking specifically at logistics and product availability, the survey shows a clear increase in customers’ want for the ‘human factor’, which is hard to replicate elsewhere, to further strengthen customer relationships. This, in essence, is the same principle that underlies FrieslandCampina Ingredients’ strategy when thinking with customers about the end-consumers.

Tapping into the growing global nutrition market, customers are not only looking for powder in bags but also want more options, more ideas, and more ways to impact their consumers’ lives for the better. FrieslandCampina Ingredients’ recent evolution into a unified brand responds to this demand, creating a unique position in value-added, healthy and functional ingredients and solutions. Aligning with changing market needs, enhancing solution and service offerings and further leveraging development capabilities, the new company emphasises co-creation and growing customer partnerships.

The new FrieslandCampina Ingredients combines its Research and Development capabilities to be a strong player in the global market. With the rebranding, FrieslandCampina Ingredients will be better able to provide customers with products and solutions that reflect the market needs and offer solutions for nutritious and healthy food, as well as the trend towards more out-of-home and on-the-go consumption. The changes also simplify the company’s portfolio, so we can offer a clearly defined configuration of services and products and create more focus and clarity on who we are for our customer and what we can mean for them.  Our strategic market segments include:

1. Early Life Nutrition: ​Continuing to deliver on the trust people have in Infant Milk Formula to help young children grow healthily and build on a legacy of more than 75 years as world market leader in nutritional ingredients like GOS, HMOs and hydrolysates, to name a few.
2. Adult Nutrition​: Serving Performance, Active and Medical Nutrition. It includes an extensive portfolio of nutritional dairy protein ingredients, providing essential nutrients for those moments when people need them most.
3. Food & Beverages: ​Serving global food and beverage customers. It continues a long history of enriching customers’ businesses with unique sensory expertise in creaminess, milkiness, mouthfeel, colour and texture for end-products in the coffee, (milk) tea, pastry, decoration, desserts, ice cream and soups & sauces markets, creating indulgent experiences that enhance the senses. Additionally, it includes an extensive portfolio of functional dairy protein ingredients.
4. Animal Nutrition: ​Feeding young animals around the world with dairy based solutions. Building on a legacy of safeguarding high-quality standards and own member farmers’ expertise, it believes that strong, healthy-growing animals mean strong, productive and sustainable businesses.

At its core, FrieslandCampina Ingredients consists of passionate ingredient specialists focused on ensuring that every solution for our customers is spot on. We know that it takes more than just ingredients to make value-added products filled with goodness. It takes the right ingredients crafted by people who believe that what’s inside the food and beverages we eat and drink matters.