Bolthouse Farms, a subsidiary of Camden, N.J.-based Campbell Soup Co., unveiled its new Innovation Center at its Bakersfield, Calif., headquarters. The facility is designed to accelerate new product development and enhance current Bolthouse Farms offerings across the company’s portfolio of beverages, salad dressings and fresh carrots, the company says. The Innovation Center will integrate marketing and research to create new products intended to help consumers make healthy choices, it says.

“The Innovation Center is a fitting next step toward ‘Inspiring the Fresh Revolution,’ as it enables us to further enhance how healthier foods, beverages and snacks are developed and marketed,” said Jeff Dunn, chief executive officer of Bolthouse Farms, in a statement. “Our investment in consumer research and new innovations in food science will enable us to attract additional world-class talent to increase consumers’ access to high-quality, nutritious and affordable products.”

The $5-million, 17,9000-square-foot Innovation Center houses 40 employees, several test kitchens and a sensory center, which will allow product developers to utilize advanced technologies as they research food and beverage ingredients and products, the company says. Bolthouse Farms says it hopes the center will greatly expand the potential number of products it brings to market on an annual basis and enable the introduction of completely new product categories.