To ensure its long term and sustainable success in a highly competitive market environment, it is AGRANA's strategic goal to set itself apart from its competitors via continual technological optimisation and product innovations. On the one hand, AGRANA strives to optimise its production technologies, also as regards sustainability criteria, and on the other, the company collaborates with its clients to develop recipes, special products, and new uses for existing products. AGRANA  supports various research and development institutions to implement these strategies and to expand its comprehensive development expertise.

AGRANA's research and development in the sugar and starch sectors are bundled at the Zuckerforschung Tulln Gesellschaft m.b.H. (ZFT) in Austria. This sugar research institute's capacities range from agriculture, through food, sugar, starch and bioethanol technologies to microbiology and biotechnology.