La Rocca Creative Cakes Opens New Store Concept and Innovation Centre in Richmond Hill, ON
“La Rocca Creative Kitchen” is a Hub for Innovation & as well as an Interactive Space to Engage with the Community
RICHMOND HILL, ON, (Sep. 26, 2017) -- La Rocca Creative Cakes Inc. has announced the opening of La Rocca Creative Kitchen: an innovation centre in Richmond Hill, ON.
Located in the Shoppes of Heritage Hollow, near the intersection of Elgin Mills and Leslie, the 2,400 sq.ft. space incorporates both a state-of-art open test kitchen as well as an open-to-the-public retail store.
The drive behind La Rocca Creative Kitchen is to act as a hub for research and development of new and creative desserts in an interactive space to engage with the community and a learning centre for those in the bakery industry. According to Michael Givens, President of La Rocca, “La Rocca Creative Kitchen is a platform for food innovation by showcasing a series of experimentations and discoveries, with a goal to make food more fun, more beautiful and more delicious”, explained Michael. “We challenge ourselves everyday as we listen to our over 2,000 wholesale customers and millions of guests’ feedback to ensure that we provide the very best products for them to enjoy”.
Driving rapid innovation with partners
The Creative Kitchen will also serve as an incubator for rapid innovation with leading foodservice operators and iconic retailers who want to leverage the best-in-class kitchen and team of pastry chefs. “We are excited to host product developers and Chef teams in our Creative Kitchen to collaborate and bring fresh new ideas to the dessert category across North America and abroad” said Michael. The project will serve to drive thought leadership for the Canadian marketplace.
A funnel to attract and inspire top talent
Having the possibility to test new concepts and receiving real-time reactions from the Creative Kitchen’s guests is an ideal setting for their creative team. Joint exploration and live feedback from consumers help the chefs perfect their creations and deliver new flavour and texture combinations.
A place to learn
La Rocca Creative Kitchen also serves as a learning centre that focuses on working with industry leaders. La Rocca’s Bakery team of over 300 bakers and students from renowned institutions as well as established Chefs from Canada and abroad will continue their professional development within the cutting edge La Rocca facility.
The stage is set to play with food
The concepts of playfulness and interactivity are central to La Rocca Creative Kitchen, from its architecture to its visual identity and packaging, created around the “tangram” theme: a puzzle that allows the creation of endless designs around a basic set of colourful geometric shapes.
Just like the tangram, “all the elements at La Rocca Creative Kitchen were designed to incite curiosity, playfulness and to facilitate interaction, challenging both chefs and guests to try something new every day”, explained Michael.
In addition to La Rocca’s well-known cakes, like the Super Caramel Crunch™ and Truffle Royale, La Rocca Creative Kitchen regularly features exclusive, limited-time premium desserts that are not available anywhere else and can be enjoyed on-site with a selection of coffees prepared by highly-trained baristas.
La Rocca Creative Kitchen
1285 Elgin Mills Rd Unit 5
Richmond Hill, ON L4S 0B5
Website and online store: www.LaRoccaKitchen.com
For a copy of high resolution images, or other media requests on the La Rocca Creative Kitchen, please contact:
Philippe Gaudet
Vice President, Sales & Marketing
phil@laroccacakes.com
905-787-2119
About La Rocca Creative Cakes
Taking its inspiration from the family’s original bakery established in the 1950s in Naples, Italy, La Rocca Creative Cakes has operated in Canada since 1986.
Based in Richmond Hill, ON, La Rocca’s 40,000 sq. ft. bakery features a blend of efficient mechanization & high-touch, artisan capabilities, and is now one of Canada’s largest independent bakeries.
La Rocca’s award-winning desserts can be found across Canada and the USA at hundreds of grocery stores, cafés and specialty stores.
For more information about La Rocca Creative Cakes, please visit: www.LaRoccaCakes.com