Ingredion's Bedford Park, Ill. Idea Lab held a ribbon-cutting ceremony to celebrate the recent renovation of the site, which is used for welcoming visiting customers, guests, and fostering on-site collaboration. The updated Idea Lab was designed to enhance our technical capabilities with an expanded food laboratory, refreshed office and conference areas, and enhancements to support increased customer visits and on-site engagements. In addition, the refreshed space allowed for the relocation of the PureCircle global applications team from downtown Chicago to join the Bedford Park location.

"I'm very happy that the company has made the investment to bring the PureCircle team into the existing lab with our beauty and home and industrial teams," said Rob Ritchie, regional president, Mexico, U.S./Canada sweetener and industrial solutions, Kerr Concentrates and global core strategy. "This is a great example of what it means to be what's next for our team members and our business."

The site is a cross-functional incubator for ideas and applications. Teams across the food, beverage, beauty, home, industrial and sugar reduction and specialty sweetener applications can collaborate easier and are already developing new uses for products. One example is a shaving cream made using PURECIRCLE^® Reb M which was initially developed for food and beverage applications.

"Our location near our Westchester headquarters, the Argo plant, and many local customers in the Chicago area is a great advantage," said Heidi Adams, manager of customer solutions. "This is a place that customers and others can easily access to work and innovate together."

"We're able to explore technical applications and testing with expertise from other teams," shared Chi Anigbogu, global marketing manager, beauty and home. "Our unique access provides us with new products and applications for customers looking for innovative ways to go to market."

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