Deli Star Corporation announces the opening of its new Innovation Center in downtown St. Louis. This venture is the Illinois-based company’s first investment in Missouri in its 28-year history; it demonstrates the company’s commitment to research and development, and looks to fuel aggressive growth plans by nurturing and furthering Deli Star’s current and future customer partnerships.

The new Innovation Center is located in downtown St. Louis’ Laclede’s Landing district at 727 North First Street, and features a state-of-the-art, restaurant-style kitchen for R&D with adjoining conference rooms, employee offices and additional meeting spaces. Customers will work side-by-side with Deli Star’s R&D team and chefs, fueling collaboration in creating innovative protein solutions for the foodservice industry. The Innovation Center will celebrate its grand opening on February 26, 2016.

“Our new second home provides a custom location to help our customers grow, while giving us an arena to showcase our products, speed R&D and boost our AMVAC fresh meat division,” says Justin Siegel, President of Deli Star Corporation. “The center’s close proximity to Lambert-St. Louis International Airport and the St. Louis metro area’s business zone makes it an ideal and enticing place for us to welcome our existing partners and potential new partners.

“We are committed to bringing products to our customers and to the market quicker than any of our competitors, and this Innovation Center, centrally located in the U.S., will allow us to best do so,” Siegel adds. “The center will provide an even greater commitment to our research and development, one of Deli Star’s core values that help us to align our purpose and vision.”

Fayetteville is within close proximity of the new Innovation Center and is home to Deli Star’s state-of-the-art, SQF-accredited meat processing facility, where it implements a proprietary post-pasteurization process that guarantees its processed meat products are free of preservatives, harmful bacteria and foodborne pathogens. Deli Star’s processing facility also packages case-ready fresh meat with a unique packaging format developed by its AMVAC division. The Innovation Center provides R&D needed for new product introductions and marketing strategies, while its packaging operations continue to grow at the Fayetteville plant.