Finding what a new food technology could become

The question

The company wanted to grow with a production technology it already had. A capability on its own is only a possibility, though.

The business wanted a pipeline of opportunities for it, in cereal, in snacks and in spaces between, built on what people would actually want.

Our approach

We looked for opportunities before products. Growth mapping set the areas the company wanted to explore against trends, channels and what experts expected to change, so every idea started from a reason to exist.

Because some opportunities would take years to reach, we read the near and the far future differently: signals of growth for the next few years, wider forces of change for the decade.

The company’s R&D team was in the work from the start. Its own specialists explained what the technology could do, and ideation brought marketing, packaging and R&D around one table, so ideas stayed within reach of what the company could make.

What the team came away with

Opportunity areas for the technology, and a set of written, illustrated cereal and snack concepts for the near and the longer term, developed to go into the company’s own concept screening.

A film of the experts’ views and a wrap-up document were made for the wider business.