A total of 1,700m² of office space, reserved for 150 workstations on two floors, has been created due to Marel identifying the need for more office space and factory surface.
The business’ Dutch division has seen some substantial growth of late, leading to the need for more production space.
“The investment in a renewed and extensive facility was necessary to provide all of our people with the best possible working environment,” said Anton de Weerd, managing director of Marel Poultry.
In the new R&D centre, the research and development teams of Marel Poultry, Meat and Further Processing will work together, stimulating cross-pollination and collaboration within their fields of expertise.
De Weerd added: “We are pleased and proud to offer such a pleasant working atmosphere to our employees. I am convinced that this new, inspiring environment will stimulate our people to develop many pioneering ideas and successful business.
“This investment confirms the strong position of Marel in Boxmeer now and in the future. The Boxmeer site is also the heart of the Marel Poultry division, where many innovations have been developed and launched over the past 55 years. This underlines once again the importance of the agri-food sector in our Brabant region.”
Marel recently teamed up with Dutch universities TU Eindhoven, TU Delft, University of Twente, and University of Amsterdam to create a programme involving cognitive robots for flexible agro-food technology. The schemed was awarded Government funding and will focus on creating robots that can deal with the large variety of agri-food products, in combination with ever-changing environmental conditions and tasks that are typical for the agri-food chain.