Top 10 tips for NPD

                                        

Susan Willis

Susan Willis, an interim food technologist, began her career in a small company where she did everything from create the recipes to load the delivery trucks. It has stood her in good stead and she has gone on to develop new products for all the major retailers.


Here are my top ten tips to work as a successful new product development technologist:

1. Research: Detailed market analysis is crucial to understanding who, what and where your competition is and the strengths and weaknesses of your product. 
Top tip: Don’t show your concept to a customer before it has been signed-off by the business; they need to identify major risks at the outset and decide if the overall risk is worth the potential reward.

2. Critical paths: Paths need to show everyone the order and time in which tasks must be completed. Top tip: Any delays in the timing schedule must be communicated to everyone concerned. The delay can have a knock-on effect throughout the critical path, eg deadlines for artwork cannot be met until information is available from factory trials but often trials cannot be completed until a raw material has been delivered. 

3. Product portfolio: Know your business’s whole portfolio of products. In practice, most new product development is incremental – improving or re-engineering an existing product. Compared with creating a product from scratch, this should be relatively straightforward.
Top tip: Know size, weight, raw materials, cost, packaging, and the process involved for all your standard lines.  

4. Commercial awareness: Pro-activity is needed in developing new lines - being able to recognise when a product’s life-cycle is coming to an end (before your customer does) is a great asset.  And, having ideas ready to replace or modify the product is even better.
Top tip: Look, listen and learn - try to stay abreast of the sales of your products. 

5. The integral development: As head of a new product development you are at the centre of the whole operation, i.e. the axle in a wheel. You need to have excellent communicational skills as production, technical, packaging, commercial, engineering, process, concept chef's, specification and operational teams will all expect you to give them the information they need to fulfil their part of the development.
Top tip: In other words, you need to be ‘a jack of all trades’.

6. Packaging: The packaging and appearance of a product is equally, if not more, important than the food inside it. It is the first impression a customer has before deciding to actually pick it up from the supermarket shelf. The term 'packaging' can often include many components - trays, wrap, cartons, sleeves, label, sticker, tag, outer-boxes, inserts. 
Top tip: Whether your packaging is new or standard stock always try it on the line first. Minute changes can make big differences to the end result.

7. Sensory analysis: The sensory evaluation of food is crucial. It is your defence if products do not perform well once they leave site. Within branded products, market testing is the best way to identify consumer opinion.
Top tip: Record the attributes of every set of samples you make - either kitchen or at trial. Even though lab results may be positive until a certain day, the attributes of the food may not last as long - look, taste, smell and evaluate the texture every time.   

8. Technical implications: Hara and HACCP documentation is the way forward in developing new products. Identifying any risks involved in new processes and raw materials should be controlled at the beginning, middle and pre-production stages of the development.
Top tip: A process chart describing each stage of production is an enormous help when planning CCPs.

9. Factory trials: This is where you’re problem solving skills need to be 100%. In a busy manufacturing area the production and delivery of daily orders for customers is paramount. Production staff will allocate time for new trials but organisation to fit in with their tight schedules is vital.
Top tip: Have everything ready and organised before the trial starts. If there are problems during the trial, always ask production staff for their advice.


10. Launch day: Every member of the team will be anxious - especially when customers are on site to watch their new product being made.
Top tip: Try to spread an air of composure and be confident with your new product.