You're listening to Peter Bodenheimer and Stefani Bardin of the unstuck Innovation consultancy talking about the food business news slideshow innovation in bread and savory snacks published on July 19 2023 you can find this audio nugget and a link to the slideshow on our website: unstuck innovation.com

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Here's part one of that conversation

One of the things that we get asked a lot about is what are the different types of innovation what does innovation mean right and so it's it's a good question it's a fair question in particular because you've got different types of innovation in terms of systems or product Innovation or management Innovation they're all these different things but when you look at product Innovation which I think is a lot of the lens that people in the food industry use they're even different layers of innovation there. So a great example came from Food business news puts out sort of these slideshows every so often of innovative products in a different category and they put one out in Breads and savory snacks and there were a couple of good examples in there that I think are worth talking about the first is - Nature Valley the long time maker of granola bars very very sweet granola bars making a savory line of bars that they're launching. A lot of what they're doing there is based on some studies that came out or surveys that they did around you know 63 percent of Americans have a strong preference for savory or salty snacks and then there was also a study in 2020 from a food and health survey that they talk about that 74 percent of Americans are looking to reduce their sugar intake which no big surprise there I think we realize that sugar can be problematic. Now what they're innovating on by putting out the savory snack is the flavor profile they're saying here are the trends and the areas that our consumer is more interested in this is a way for us to stay relevant as opposed to just have more sweet granola snacks and that's one way to approach it right like it's it's giving the consumer what they want and that makes sense I mean and I think it makes sense and I think the article also talks about the everything bagel flavoring which I think is also an interesting way to think about where they're jumping onto the train and they're not reinventing a flavor they're just taking an existing flavor that has traction and they're adding it to their product line. One it's funny if you look at early stage sort of emerging brands you see a lot of that kind of going towards savory and salty but way beyond and that's natural that a larger more established brand is going to stay safe, and take less risk.

Here's part two of that conversation

Another example in here is Stone and Skillet English muffins and they're innovating on their English muffin products but doing it through a partnership with Up Inc which is the company that makes Regrained which is a superflower made from upcycled brewers grain so the the leftover from the beer brewing process and there are a couple of companies in that space doing interesting things but ,this is a very different type of innovation right instead of saying here's what the flavors that our customers seem to be interested in we're saying what are the values that our customers care about and how are we going to address that. So I don't know how the English muffins taste, I hope they taste good because food should taste good - but the one thing they definitely do is they're having a they're having less of an impact they're using more of the food that's already grown in this country they're taking a waste stream and making it valuable again and that's going to have a my guess would be that's going to have a great impact for their business because they're putting their money where their mouth is which is something that you know there's a lot of talk around how to do this but often it's just talk and this seems like a very good step in that direction.

Here's part three of that conversation

There's also this idea in there of a longer life Innovation cycle that the innovation cycle isn't you know short-term that the Innovation cycle is embedded in the processes and the manufacturing in the you know farming of these ingredients or lack of farming right because they're using a product that already exists right well they're they're Outsourcing that part of the innovation chain right so Up is already doing all of this they've built their business around being able to do that and now they provide just a straight ingredient that a company like Stone and skillet can buy and integrate into their product.

I also think when you talk about the timeline the other thing is this probably will have longer lasting impact than what Nature Valley is doing because taste can be so fickle right so right now the flavors that they put out probably are going to hit the American palette pretty well based on what we know but a year from now two years from now three years from now you're gonna have to continue to keep up with those cycles because hey it's it's Global flavors this year it might be indigenous flavors next year and that's just the way that it works in the industry. Sometimes people get a little squeamish around Innovation because they see money going out the door and money not coming in the door immediately right like when you put out a new product or flavor profile your return is going to be pretty easy because it's just it's that law of diminishing returns right that first Snickers bar that you have is amazing and then every subsequent Snickers bar that you have loses its impact right so every new flavor is going to give you that punch and you're always chasing after that dopamine hit of a new flavor and it seems like more money coming in in the in the beginning but that is a a hamster wheel that is very expensive to maintain over time.