Kraft Heinz’s Post

Does the lack of fresh produce branding in retail frustrate you? In our latest article we look at a battle that has been going on for decades and how we can create lasting change. I would love to hear your thoughts and discuss how we can work together on this.

"To truly create impactful products, leaders must prioritize the consumer, understand their needs and meet them where they are in the business of creating impact in people’s everyday lives" - this is what allows brands to build loyalty, gain share, and earn a premium. Important thoughts on CPG innovation from fellow Forbes Business Council member Adam Melonas in his article. Very aligned to our consumer-focused growth thinking at Foresight Strategy!

Customer-centric (customer-centered, customer first) was a corporate buzzword that littered mission statements, marketing slicks, slogans, emails, etc., but lost its impact due to corporations' repeated failures to deliver on the promise. I fear the same fate for "Innovation," which is used everywhere but seldom delivered consistently. The "Innovation Gap" discussed in Adam Melonas article published by Forbes Business Council below must be solved before "Innovation" becomes another hollow buzzword. Innovation, not Renovation, is what will drive profitable, volume-led growth for CPG companies. Critically, the innovation, from idea to shelf, must be in months, not years.

A couple of months ago, I joined the Forbes Business Council. Earlier today, they published an article I put together on the difference between Innovation and Renovation. This confusion, or, as I think about it, the dilution of the intended impact of innovation, is further fueling this topic I have been speaking and writing about, which I call the "Innovation Gap." #CPG #Innovation #CPGindustry #Forbes #ForbesBusiness

In FMCG, your consumers will NEVER stop finding ways to surprise you. See if this scenario rings any bells... Your consumers pour their unmet needs into blogs and Facebook groups. They complain they can’t find gluten-free pasta with a mango aftertaste. Apparently, mango pasta is the only thing their kid might eat. So you get Brand, Insights, Logistics and the whole team on board to develop mango pasta. Just to make sure you’re on track, you mock up a packaging design to test on consumers — a packcept. Packcepts are brilliant. By mocking up the design and testing it on consumers, you have a good idea how a product without much marketing support will work if you show consumers the design. You're testing if consumers will “get it”. So in our mango pasta example, your consumers would be looking at the design of what they’ll see on the shelf. And they’re telling us that they wouldn’t buy the EXACT pasta they asked for because… - They don’t like the look of the pot in the product shot. - Or you didn’t write “mango” big enough. Because you can't argue with the consumer, even when they're being messy and illogical, you need to understand the consumer, so we asked our packcept expert, Katherine, for some tips on successful packcept testing. Here’s what she said you should know about getting consumer feedback on packaging to check you’re on course for a successful launch: 1. Your customer will almost never care about the thing you think is most important. (You’ve spent months working out how to infuse mango into pasta. Meanwhile, the consumer is throwing things into their trolley before the free parking runs out.) 2. Test packaging iteratively if you can. This way, you’ll avoid hitting a stumbling block three weeks before the retailer expects the product on shelves. 3. Remember that what’s visible on the shelf is the whole story for most shoppers, so anything that doesn’t leap off the front of the pack like it’s IMAX in 3D probably won’t factor into the shopper’s consideration. 4. There are different ways to test a pack and an incredible amount of rich, actionable feedback that can be collected as a result of structuring the test cleverly. 5. When you test loads of packcepts like we do, you bring lessons from one test to how you build future tests, which creates even more insight. 6. Expect great feedback that you couldn’t have anticipated. Consumers have views about *everything*. It often turns out that the consumer is amazingly insightful — and they *always* turn out to be the ones with the money. Our final piece of advice is that you should never — NEVER — lay bets in the office about what the consumer will most care about. The house will always win on that one. Actually, our last piece of advice is to watch our short course on innovation in FMCG. The reason we love packcepts is revealed in lesson 2. https://hubs.li/Q0244CBj0 #fmcg #training #innovation

Diageo are making a bold step. They are introducing a new breakthrough innovation team. Their remit will be to look beyond the core, to create new disruptive platforms and business models. This is a great move. They are investing in building this capability and therefore setting themselves up to drive competitive advantage and long term growth. Innovation is inherently risky and can come at a cost in terms of time and investment. But it is becoming even more critical for businesses to survive, let alone thrive into the future. #innovation #competitiveadvantage

5 Lessons for building an unstoppable brand from Oatly's ex creative director Kevin Lynch: 1. Start with Trust! 2. Think Revolution, Not Evolution! 3. Remember, No One Cares! 4. Better to Be Debated Than Ignored! 5. Read the article and let me know how you interpret this one 😅 Link in comments 👀 #branding #marketing #enterpreneurship #fmcg #foodandbeverage #retail

Not all innovation is ambitious. And not all ambitions relate to innovation. But when the two come together, great things can happen. (Key word being *can*.) In its inaugural post, Integral CPG dives more into our origin story and why we've decided to focus on ambitious innovation, further detailing just what it is, and why it should be important to most (all?) food & beverage players.

As shared in our launch announcement, Integral CPG was founded to unlock ambitious innovation for food & beverage brands. But what do we mean by 'ambitious' innovation? The concept isn't a new one nor something we invented in isolation. Rather it has existed for over a decade. - Any company that has passed the proof-of-concept stage has established a 'core' product portfolio – this is usually the products they launched and became known for - For a period, these companies can experience high growth with this core, through things like line extensions and packaging optimizations - But in time, maintaining higher growth, will require the company to step beyond its core into things that are truly new to it - This newness doesn't have to be about just the product, but could include changes in how the brand makes products, brings them to market, partners with others or operates in pursuit of growth - Innovation efforts that go beyond the core are known as 'breakthrough,' 'transformative,' 'disruptive' and more Regardless of the terminology, the implications remain: the further you want to move from the core with innovation, the greater the ambition involved, and the greater the ambition, the more you’re no longer innovating around the product alone but rather around an expansion of your business So, why does ambitious innovation require unlocking? Can’t a company just add it to their pipeline? The short answer is sure, but when innovation efforts move beyond what’s already known to the company, risks can grow exponentially. As such, pursuing such efforts often requires perspectives and approaches that differ significantly from what the company has used previously. Unfortunately, most companies aren’t great at stepping out of their 'norms' to attack these opportunities. It’s not a criticism, but rather a reflection of reality – it's a similar reason why people hire personal trainers or why doctors don’t perform surgeries on themselves. Beyond the specific expertise required, it is difficult to impose meaningful behavioral change on ourselves, and often an outside agent, or 'catalyst,' is required. Pursuing ambitious innovation without the right support can create many issues, but there are 3 we have seen to be most common and challenging, and which hold companies back as a result. And these are at the core of our philosophy and resulting approach. We’ll cover these 3 issues, and Integral's answers to them, in depth over the next few weeks – stay tuned! Extra credit – check out "Managing Your Innovation Portfolio" by Bansi Nagji and Geoff Tuff, Havard Business Review, May 2012 to dive deeper into the innovation ambition framework #ambitiousinnovation #breakthroughinnovation #foodandbeverageinnovation

In part three of our discussion around the different types of innovation in the consumer packaged goods space, we dive into the cycles of innovation and how short-term "inexpensive" innovations can, in reality, be more expensive in the long run. #corporateinnovation #longterminvestment #upcycling