Case Study

OPPORTUNITIES FOR VALUE ADDED INNOVATION IN THE INGREDIENTS SPACE

Growth Strategy

We were hired to understand the market for discovery and R&D services offered by food innovation companies with a view to helping the client decide how to change their own processes, how best to price value added services when offered as an add-on to ingredients purchases, and whether there are attractive acquisition targets in this space which could be integrated without jeopardizing their own sources of advantage. We interviewed over 30 food innovation insiders across three markets in support of getting to the answer.

Team

  • 1 Project manager

  • 1 Analyst

  • 1 Researcher

Timeline

  • 14 Weeks

Project highlights

  • To gain true insight into the the intangible essence of innovators in the market, we combined desk research with subject matter experts in the space, allowing us to:

    • Understand the landscape of specialist food innovation and new product development companies in core markets.

    • Map core offerings and price points across the markets.

    • Understand implementation challenges faced by customers when ultimately attempting to put into place the recommendations garnered from these companies.

    • Articulate the specialist cultural attributes of an innovation hub and help the client understand how such an entity risks being smothered in a larger manufacturing centric culture.

    •  Facilitate a discussion with senior client members leading to a realistic approach to building an innovation center which will effectively leverage their strengths without being buried in bureaucracy and process.

The client is one of a handful of major ingredients suppliers in a sector of the market, serving major food manufacturers, QSRs and chain restaurants across multiple countries. The client observed food innovation consulting firms charging high fees to develop products which they themselves could have developed more quickly, more cheaply, and in ways which better anticipated production realities for the end customer.

The Client

‘‘We realize now that an innovation center needs its own ethos, it’s own freedom to operate and to experiment. We need to find a way to create such an enviornment while leveraging the operational know-how we have about challenges in implementation down the road.’’

- Client.