Do the authors finally find the magic formula to develop successful products?
No, they absolutely don't, so if a magic formula is what you are looking for please don't buy this book.
However, there is a great need for a book that describes and explains food development from the point of view of the consumer and away from the top down approach. With the new era of big data, more nuanced food development solutions are becoming available.
This is probably the first book to describe how this might happen. It combines research from the most radical thinkers in the food product development sphere.
Predicting the rapid acceptability of an innovative personal computer promises a rapid increase in technological consideration of its manufacturer. The projection of profits from a new line of health drinks suggests that the period of depression could end for the company, and its share value. Expected sales of a commodity or ingredient in anticipation of a corporate merger will indicate a significant financial return for investors.
These are just some of the effects of successful product development.
The ideas for new products come from a large number of sources: from the scientist in the laboratory, from the developer, from the irritated customer or from the innovation of the competitor.
Managers, convinced of the merit of their idea through interpretation keys and data sources, generate impressive amounts of forecasting and financial performance documents concerning the opportunities for a new product. Predictions of sales and profits for the next five years, together with the mixed atmosphere of challenge and success in the market-place, motivate them to organize a development team. As soon as the project is approved by the general management, things start to move. The different skill-groups involved begin to spend weeks discussing and almost never agree, particularly on responsibilities. Someone begins to argue against the project all the more strongly with the increasing success of the competitor.
Finally, a compromise seems to emerge between the marketing, R&D and production staff. Thus begins the period of maximum turbulence to try to make up for lost time, in which each figure involved sets unlikely deadlines for their ‘suppliers’, typically production, creatives, graphic designers and printers. This will calm down with the settling of economic trends and/or with the advent of a new idea; the degree of innovation can range from simple extension to the most extreme penetration (turning products).
In the first case, i.e. in the extension of existing products, the introduction of new features that generally meet specific market demands, often have the connotation of a defensive move aimed at keeping the consumer from switching to the competition.
The so-called ‘me too’ products, for example, are copies of successful competitors’ analogues, in some cases with timid additional innovations, new to the company that introduces them, but not to the market.
So what is a new product?
In an absolute sense, it should be something that did not exist previously, while in a more relative sense, it can be something that has not yet been proven, that is perceived as new. In defining new products, the later, i.e. something that is perceived as new, is much more useful and profitable, especially for those who bet on it. A novelty can represent an opportunity, but also a problem; however, the concept of new in the relative sense can be perceived as new in the absolute sense by some.
A product is a multidimensional concept, with expectations/needs to be met and in which interest must be generated: it represents to an organization, a great opportunity to create value that will be translated in different ways by anyone who feels such interest, tangible or not, long- or short-term. Nevertheless, a successful product must necessarily have an intimate concept, on which everyone can agree, that is capable of supporting the promise of a sustainable advantage for the organization that created it.
A new product concept can be seen as a path from an essence to a specific level. This path can be schematized, in a completely arbitrary but useful way, on some level that will be gradually deepened in the course of the text and which will serve to define the critical points of development.
The text is written with friends and colleagues, opinion leaders in their areas of expertise, who, as proof of mutual esteem, have immediately responded positively to my request for collaboration on a particularly demanding work that deals with the topics with the necessary scientific rigor and application.
The following is a list of product development hot topics that are treated in the book:
the actual sensory and consumer approach
from focus group to mind genomics
mind genomics as a model-driven development
consumer testing with children
artificial intelligence to identify ideas
features for product labelling, packaging and advertising
assigning people to empirically uncovered mind-set
systematic and researcher proclivities in product design
The volume is aimed at scientists, technicians and operators; quality control/assurance, R&D, marketing and processing functions will find the whole book interesting although I do not expect them to be equally attracted to the different chapters. For this reason, each chapter can be consulted separately, with the personal hope that the reader can benefit from continuing to read even initially unplanned parts.
PS
While being sure that he too thinks the same of me, I have always considered Howard to be one of the most pleasant and capable people. I have known Howard since 1995, despite the over 6500 km that separate us and the fact that sometimes timetables prevent us from having a coffee together. Despite his having started with an ‘advantage’ we have aged by dint of writing books and articles to disseminate our approaches and results on how to develop new products. We have never kept in our pockets even a grain of sand of our knowledge from the reader.
I take this opportunity to tell him that for the next 30 years we will only publish comics.
Sebastiano Porretta
