Nestlé in Challerange: a dose of the Ardennes in your coffee

A centre of excellence for milk powders, the Nestlé Challerange site in French Ardennes is one of the main suppliers of milk-based preparations for Nescafé® Dolce Gusto® pods.

The Swiss group has decided to invest nearly 20 million euros so the factory can produce a new recipe using innovative technology.

Nestlé is the world's leading food group specialising in nutrition, health and wellbeing, with 413 factories across 85 countries (17 plants in France) and more than 2000 brands on the market. It has sales of around 90 billion Swiss francs (including 3.5 billion euros by Nestlé France in 2020).

To maintain its leading position, the group invests in Research and Development with 40 research centres and 5000 staff in this area.

The Ardennes production centre employs 130 people and processes almost 100 million litres of milk from over 200 local farmers every year.

In 2019, Nestlé embarked on a partnership with US coffee giant Starbucks, which was extended in mid-2021 to international markets (South-East Asia, Oceania and Latin America).

To meet this new demand, the Ardennes site has increased production from 8000 tonnes of dehydrated milk in 2008 to 21,000 tonnes in 2021. New buildings are also being constructed to accommodate the new recipe.

Nestlé regularly invests in French Ardennes, installing a biomass boiler fuelled by wood chips from local forests in 2011, a second evaporator in 2015 and more.

The quality and diversity of French Ardennes' agricultural resources make it an ideal location for the agrifood and bioeconomy industries. The major companies already present, such as Nestlé and Mondelez, are developing in the region, and new trends are emerging, with Agronutris due to open locally at the end of 2022.

Nestlé: Good food, Good life | Nestlé Global (nestle.com)

By Ardennes Développement, the Ardennes economic development agency - ardennes-developpement.com