Nestlé USA, Glendale, Calif., elevated its commitment to quality and safety with a $31 million investment in the Nestlé Quality Assurance Center (NQAC) in Dublin, Ohio, which was designed to raise the bar for the verification of food safety and quality standards and provide support for the implementation and maintenance of food safety programs. NQAC Dublin is said to be the largest and most sophisticated testing facility in the Nestlé network and possibly the world.

The newly expanded NQAC is now the lead quality assurance center for all Nestlé businesses in the United States. It has nearly doubled in size to 82,000 square feet, including an expanded 32,000-square-foot microbiology lab, a completely renovated chemistry lab and associated facilities that increase capacity and efficiency and improve safety for product testing.

The NQAC has the ability and capacity to test virtually every Nestlé product, ingredient and manufacturing environment and meets Nestlé’s high-quality and safety standards. The newly renovated center also incorporates sustainability efforts through the use of natural refrigerants, complying with many LEED requirements, features a variety of MERV (minimum efficiency reporting value) and HEPA (high-efficiency particulate arrestance) filtration options, using natural light throughout the facility and rapidly-renewable building materials and products.

“As we celebrate our 150^th anniversary, the Nestlé Quality Assurance Center exemplifies what we mean when we say ‘at Nestle, quality means more,’” says Edgar Vanegas, NQAC regional manager, Americas. “We recognize that we have a responsibility to the public and hold all of our foods and beverages to the highest safety and quality standards. This is a responsibility we never take lightly.”

“At Nestlé, each and every employee is accountable for food quality and safety, and we are investing in the leading tools in the world to ensure quality that allows our millions of consumers to have confidence in our products,” says Gregory Pritchard, vice president, quality management for Nestlé USA. “We aim to earn consumer trust by never compromising on quality in anything we do.”

The Dublin NQAC is staffed by more than 220 chemists, microbiologists, food scientists, quality specialists and support staff who offer specialized laboratory services, factory hygiene and food safety systems around the clock to the company’s U.S. production facilities.

“Together, the NQACs around the world perform more than 3 million analyses per year for the full range of Nestlé products,” says Aaron Ayres, head of the Americas NQAC Dublin.

Nestlé's Solon campus serves as headquarters for Nestlé USA’s frozen, baking, pizza and snacks divisions as well as Nestlé professional and Nestlé business services.

This is the fourth expansion for this particular facility.