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At the 7th Floor, you’ll find more delicious ideas per square metre than anywhere in Africa. This 800m2 facility situated in Black River Park in Observatory, Cape Town is an innovation centre dedicated to cooking up new food concepts for South African consumers.

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With Foodcorp’s fresh focus on marketing, CEO Justin Williamson commissioned this R8-million innovation centre. The brief: ‘Create an inspirational space to stimulate creativity’.

Featuring a state-of-the-art development kitchen with an adjacent Chocolate Studio, a lavishly decorated dining room, a bar, three meeting rooms, the Weber terrace and the Theatre of Food, the 7th Floor is the essence of Foodcorp’s drive for innovation through leading edge technology, a commitment to quality, and the use of organic materials.

Indeed, the heart of the 7th Floor is green.

Foodcorp invested R1.6 million to create a development kitchen that incorporates solar heating, water recycling – dishwater water is recycled seven times – and energy saving appliances and equipment. Efficient waste programmes were promoted, such as the InSinkErator Waste Disposers and contracting a recycling company for regular collections. An organic herb garden just off the Weber balcony keeps the kitchen well supplied.

The 7th Floor’s decor is just as kind to Mother Nature. No leather was used for the custom-made furniture, and the designers used Eco-resin throughout, an environmentally friendly product used to create walls, dividers and light shields.

Guests to the 7th Floor are immediately enchanted by the ‘The Artefacts of Eating’ on the entrance hall, an art piece made up of 2000 pieces of cutlery, each telling their own story, and wallpaper embellished with hundreds of handwritten recipes. The glamorous reception area serves as a coffee bar by day and cocktail bar by night, hosting events from product launches to cooking demonstrations.

The Theatre of Food, with its clever seating that resembles green spaghetti, hosts TV shows, cooking demonstrations and workshops by renowned chefs. Thanks to the 7th Floor’s audio-visual technology, and the suspended cameras and food-enhancing sodium lights in the Theatre of Food, what’s happening on stage can be beamed to the plasma screens throughout the venue.  

Weber – who is a sponsor of the Chefs Association – has a fantastic function venue in the 7th Floor. The Weber terrace, with its built-in gas grill, and the adjacent the Weber pub, with its marble and wood veneers, is especially appealing the South African man.

The elegant dining room is situated next to the development kitchen, allowing guests to interact with the chefs as they create mouth-watering delights. And at the touch of a button, the glass wall between the dining room and kitchen, frosts up to allow guest their privacy.

Both locally and internationally, the 7th Floor Innovation Centre has been recognised for it’s unique design and styling, being named a finalist in the One Show awards in the US in April 2009 - for show design in the category ‘Environmental Design: Single’ – and scooping up a Silver Loerie in September 2009 in the category for ‘Environmental Graphics.’

The 7th Floor is one of the most exciting events venues in Cape Town, and its development kitchen is open to all Foodcorp’s retail partners for product demonstrations – making Foodcorp’s dream to be ‘the most innovative food company in South Africa’ a reality.