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innovation has been at the heart of nestle since the late 1800s when pharmacists only Nestle created a baby formula for milk wheat flour and sugar by the early 1900s his company was exporting chocolate and following a merger with the anglo-swiss condensed milk company the business continued to grow over the decades expanding its Global footprint and product portfolio into coffee ice cream dried and frozen foods today Nestle holds a portfolio of more than 2 000 brands with factories in more than 70 countries and its products appear in shelves in more than 180. to navigate ever-changing Landscapes Nestle invests heavily into research and development and has a global headcount of more than 4 000 in r d alone working to ensure its products are serving the different needs of consumers in multiple markets in this special edition of The Edge we follow the process from scientific research to taste testing and product packaging which is all overseen by Isabel Bureau Franz Nestle's head of research who I met here in lausanne Isabelle thank you so much for having CNBC here at Nestle talk to us about what happens at this site this is really the center of scientific discoveries where Innovation starts this is very centralized here for Nestle and we mainly focus our expertise on five areas so how the food is impacting Health from a nutrition standpoint how do we develop analytical methods to understand what's in our product also how do we look at Agricultural Science packaging science and of course our food Technologies looking at Technologies to produce food products so the way we are organized is we centralize the research here and then work hand in hand with the different centers that are focusing on product categories and using those discoveries to translate into a product across Brands and across geographies sustainability is at the heart of so many businesses it's a key Focus for so many sectors how heavily is it impacting the agenda here it is impacting heavy really the agenda and at a different level we look at sustainability all along the value chain so for example developing plant-based product is one aspect but the product needs to be tasty needs to be nutritious needs to be affordable so today we are developing a lot of innovation around plant-based we also look at from an Agricultural Science point of view the carbon footprint impact of some of the raw material we use being there is rheumatoid being planter material coffee cocoa pulses but also looking at the sustainability aspects of the packaging you know how do we move from for example plastic to paper and and there is different constraint there to take into consideration so it's really holistic all along the value chain and we try to tackle any element that can help us to achieve those sustainability aspects will there be a day when we are in an entirely plant-based food world I think we need to leave the choice to the consumer so our role is really to offer a full range of plant-based products that are adapted to local needs but also to personal nutritional needs how do the teams here work with regional headquarters of nestle so they can respond to different consumer demands in different parts of the world so the way we work is to have common knowledge common understanding in deep science and then we combine different expertise to go up to the local taste and the local needs so if I give you an example on plant-based we start with the expertise on understanding how do we breed how do we choose the variety of raw material then we look at the nutritional value of the recipes then we look at with our food technologists how do we produce this product and then we have our culinary experts that are going to be involved to fine-tune the recipes exactly based on the local taste local needs and we will end up this chain of innovation with choosing the right Packaging as part of its sustainability strategy Nestle reduced the total volume of its product packaging by around 900 000 tons between 2020 and 2022 thanks to the team's work here at the Nestle Institute of packaging Sciences this is where we look at packaging material where we screen any types of packaging materials we focus on four areas first of all how to decrease the amount of packaging or being kind of packaging free with alternative delivery system that you see here also to simplify any types of plastic it's very often multi-layer and therefore not recyclable we also focus on what we say paperization how do we move from different types of packaging to paper and ultimately also explore packaging around biodegradable aspects so this is what we do here you see the labs there where we do a lot of analysis checking the capacity of our packaging to protect our product being powders being liquids being different geographies different climate Etc so this is the really whole value chain we we are looking at in those labs what are some of the biggest obstacles when it comes to developing new packaging we need a packaging that is safe for food we need the packaging that is protecting the food running in our existing lights in in the factories also convenient for the consumers and we need also a packaging that is resistant to any types of climate geographies Transportation Etc so you see the whole range of constraints that we have that are very specific to food why is it so important that new packaging is able to fit into existing systems because we have more than 400 factories running and so you need to use your existing assets to manufacture products otherwise you would need to redo everything which is which is not feasible if we think about paper for example you see here different examples and of course it will be different based also on the product that is inside so if you think about Nescafe which is a very sensitive powder to humidity because you know to dissolve it needs to absorb water you need also a paper that is protecting the powder differently than for Smarties for example or if you think about climate so this is a cerelac product that we launch in West Africa where the climate is pretty hot and humid and therefore you need a paper packaging that is going to protect the product much more when you look ahead to the future of packaging what do you think are going to be the main themes I think paper has to be the main things because it's something that is available that is biodegradable and we know that we can start working with paper we can also think about recyclable plastic but for that we would need infrastructure in different countries that are there to recycle the product and if you look today around the world we are not there right so even if we do a product that are recyclable we need also the infrastructure there to be recyclable we are exploring biodegradable but it's the same you need biodegradable infrastructure to compost your product ultimately thank you for watching and for more from CNBC International just hit the Subscribe button