With a modern approach to product development that focuses on the consumer’s vision, food and ingredients companies can launch products onto the market more successfully, assures Charlotte Boone of consultancy Alice down the rabbit hole. It revolves around co-creation.

“DON’T TRY TO CREEP INTO THE HEAD OF THE CONSUMER”

With a modern approach to product development that focuses on the consumer’s vision, food and ingredients companies can launch products onto the market more successfully, assures Charlotte Boone of consultancy Alice down the rabbit hole. It revolves around co-creation.

“The classic approach starts with the company strategy, following which trends and market reports are consulted. Ideas crystallise, a selection is created and then further refined, resulting in one or more products being launched onto the market. Shortly before production, the products are tested and trialled. This is often done by a group of employees, who state whether or not they like them. But your employees are not ordinary consumers; the question still remains as to whether the consumer wants this product.” These are the words of Charlotte Boone, co-founder of Alice down the rabbit hole. She focuses on it, but the image is still recognisable. “Don’t think in the consumer’s place, ask what the consumer thinks. Don’t try to creep into the head of the consumer. That never works.”

Co-creation

In the modern co-creation approach that the consultancy promotes, the consumer is involved at every phase of the product development process, right from the beginning. All of the intrinsic and extrinsic product features are important to this. “Talk to the target groups you have in mind”, the bio-engineer advises both food companies and ingredients suppliers. It is important to know which ingredients are relevant to the consumer and which aren’t. With this approach, if an ingredient does not catch on with the consumer, it won’t catch on with the food industry either.

Qualitative and quantitative consumer research

It is important to distinguish between qualitative and quantitative consumer research, continues Boone. “Neither is useful on its own for the generation of specific types of information. They are also complementary.” She advises companies to carry out these exercises regularly. She explains that quantitative research focuses on insights into your target public’s general preferences. “What flavours are liked by the most people? How much are they prepared to pay? It is important here for your test public to be sufficiently large, as opinions can often vary, and to ensure that your test group is representative of your target public.” With qualitative research, it’s more about the reasons why consumers make certain choices. “This provides the product development process and product positioning with better guidance”, explains Boone. “So, it’s not about preference in itself, but more about thought processes and behaviours. It is therefore even more important to question the right people. You need to involve as many different types of people from the target group as possible. For example, city dwellers sometimes have different preferences to people who live in the countryside. This also applies to different generations.”