DKSH Innovation Centers are a valuable outsourcing solution for our suppliers and customers, offering a wide range of services and instant access to high quality raw materials and ingredients from around the world.

Nihon SiberHegner (NSH) started out in Japan trading silk in 1865. It upgraded Japanese moths, engaged European textile specialists to improve methods of processing raw materials and set up its own lab for research and quality control. This led to NSH becoming the biggest exporter of Japanese raw silk.

NSH has built on its roots and continues its efforts in R&D. In 1992, it moved its facilities to the Isogo Building in Yokohama, where the Confectionery Training and Development Center Condirama Japan, the Food Application Laboratory and the Pharmaceutical Quality Control (PQC) are still housed today. Isogo also serves as a learning center: Condirama Japan is well-known for training confectionery chefs and is an excellent marketing tool for NSH's confectionery raw materials, as evidenced by high-end customers like the Tokyo Imperial Hotel, world-famous for its culinary quality.

Isogo also houses the PQC lab, equipped to handle 100 different active ingredients and animal health products, which ensures that all pharmaceuticals handled by NSH are tested prior to delivery. The Quality Control team have updated their equipment and developed new models, leading to the award of the NSH Grand Prix 2006.

The Personal Care & Cosmetic Innovation Center (PCCIC) and Food Innovation Center (FIC) are located at the biggest modern production facility in the Philippines. As well as Good Manufacturing Practices and Hazard Analysis Critical Control Point- approved, the facility is able to handle production for Muslim countries. Besides research into personal care and household formulations, stability testing and efficiency studies, the PCCIC offers training workshops. The Personal Care & Household team has access to success stories, formulation models and updated information on future trends throughout Asia and can track their projects. With its bank of over 6,000 recipes, the FIC has been very successful at conceiving flavoring and texturizing systems for savory applications and creating innovative products.

Research and training facilities are being set up in Japan and the Philippines, as well as Thailand, China and Vietnam. In Thailand, DKSH operates a relatively new PCCIC and a more established FIC, which focuses on beverage applications and sweets, creating new flavors for soft drinks and confectionery and savory applications. DKSH Vietnam plans to open a Food and Cosmetics Innovation Center in the course of 2007.

In China, each of the four Diethelm Keller Vitamex Premix factories has facilities with vet support for identifying animal diseases and treatments, as well as testing feed materials before shipment. A PCCIC is under negotiation and planned for late 2007. DKSH is steadily expanding its Innovation Centers, proving that R&D continues to be a valuable part of business.