What does it take to develop a new food product? What is behind the success of a new product being launched? Of course with food development, it doesn’t always go to plan like this re-launch of Mother drink
And don’t even get me started on Arnott’s BBQ Shapes!!
When a consumer purchases a food item, they probably have not thought about how it was produced, or understand the process of how it came to market.
Research suggests consumer attitudes have changed in recent years and now have a deep interest what they eat and how it was made.
New product development (NPD) is a hot topic on a global scale. The NPD process (New Product Development) is the act of bringing a new product to the marketplace. This process occurs due to changes in customer preferences called food trends. Food trends are created when there is a shift in behaviors and lifestyles. Consumers express the preferences by adopting changes and developing the “new favorite”.
Food manufacturers, like us, invest a lot of thought, time and effort into NPD where creativity and the principles of food science are applied and consequently, production of a new food emerges and enters the market.
Product development can be simply sorted into 5 stages:
1. Idea generation- Deciding on a product
2. Screening – Identify consumer needs
3. Concept development -Sourcing ingredients and recipe
4. Product development – Creating prototype, testing and refining process, testing and trials
5. Commercialization & Rollout– Full scale mass production and implementing marketing strategy
The biggest problem in NPD is ensuring a product tastes as good in Sample phase as it does at the end of Mass production.
At Simply Fresh, one person stays involved in every step of the process. The person making the recipe ensures that it tastes the same from bench to full scale production and that the integrity of the recipe is maintained.
Our food development team has vast experience with machines. A sample product is created and then tested on the equipment available. Often, this is the stage where problems arise and a bottleneck to end results is created. We must be fully aware of the capabilities of the machines and able to develop methods/processes to bypass the unknowns.
The Simply Fresh Team get concept products to market faster because of our Quality systems, transparency and openness. Our extensive knowledge of cuisines, cultures and various equipment and processes make our skillset unique. We determine the best processing techniques and equipment setup for each product.
Our ability to keep up with food trends ensures we commercialize new food quickly. Our adaptability and creativity ensures innovation. We’ve been responsible for creating a product that has sold out in all stores in less than a week.
Put simply, we create delicious food for QSR’s in record time using our unique skillset and the latest processing techniques rather than additives.