On Tuesday, July 12, 2022, a meeting was held between the Nestlé team and the Centre Suisse de Recherches Scientifiques.

The meeting took place in the Norbert Béhi room of the CSRS from 9:00 am to 11:30 am. The Nestlé delegation was composed of Mrs. Céline Worth, Director of the Research and Development program, Mr. HAILE Tesfalidet, General Manager of the Research and Development Center (CRD) and Mr. Coffi Hubert, Director in charge of plant and agronomy. The CSRS was represented by Prof. Koudou Benjamin, Director of Research and Development, Prof. Konan Georgette, head of the Food Security and Nutrition (SAN) research group, Dr. Kouamé Kohi Alfred and Dr. Kouadio Olivier, respectively associate researchers at CSRS and members of the SAN group. Also present at the meeting were doctoral students Tia Achil and Djué Fabrice who were recruited for Nestlé projects at CSRS.

The meeting aimed at reviewing the collaboration between the two institutions and also the meeting of PhD students. The meeting started at 9:00 am with a welcome from CSRS to the visitors followed by a series of presentations from both CSRS and Nestlé teams. Ms. Céline Worth made a presentation on Nestlé's "Affordable Nutrition" program in which the collaboration with CSRS is part of. In her presentation, Ms. Céline Worth indicated that the objective of this program is to support research for the emergence of young talent in Africa. She also stressed that this program has sponsored eight PhDs, 20 masters and four recruitments. She also indicated that the Affordable Nutrition program involves seven universities and a research center in Sub Saharan Africa. In Côte d'Ivoire, the University Nangui Abrogoua and the CSRS are involved. Similarly, she stressed that from 2020 to 2022, two masters and two Ph Ds were sponsored by Nestlé through this program in collaboration with the CSRS. In addition, Mr. HAILE said that as part of the implementation of affordable product, Nestlé also aims to create interaction between Nestlé products and consumers through consumer testing.

In addition to the presentation of Ms. Celine Worth, there were also those of doctoral students Tia Achil and Djué Fabrice on the summary and progress of their thesis work in progress respectively. In addition, there was also a closed-door exchange between the Nestlé and CSRS teams in the absence of the doctoral students.

The meeting ended at 11:30 am with words of thanks and a group photo.

Dr. Kohi/SAN