Ever forget how fast time flies? This certainly applies to people. Take me, for instance. I’m aging quickly and in my early 50s. Yet in my mind’s eye, I’m still just 27 or 28 years old. And you can imagine the disruptive surprise when an AARP card application arrived in the post.

This tricky time lapse thinking also applies to products. In this case, I’m referring to Prepared Foods’ New Products Conference. This 34-year-old event traces its roots back to “The Geneva Conference,” a 1982 gathering of Chicago-area food and beverage executives in Lake Geneva, Ill. Although our new products meeting has chugged along, this winter had us rethinking the whole event. That’s because your world has changed dramatically since the early ‘80s.

Prepared Foods still serves R&D directors but we realize that today’s new product development is a team sport. It’s a multi-functional blend of marketing, consumer insights, food science, culinary, nutrition, packaging—and even such new titles as “VP-Breakthrough Innovation” or “VP-New Platforms.” Moreover, we realize that innovative best practice insights literally come from anywhere and everywhere. Meanwhile, we all want to better understand the future, a shifting retail landscape and today’s fast-paced, fragmented consumers.

For all these reasons, we recognized it was time to completely reformulate the New Products Conference. From now on, this intimate and unique event will embrace a distinct theme, offer tracks with more related insights—showcasing packaging and “break-out” businesses—and present a much broader, richer environment for ideation. Even our annual “Spirit of Innovation” new product competition—co-sponsored with Ventura Foods—has been recast and expanded (see preparedfoods.com/innovation for details).

I’m pleased to give you a sneak peek at this year’s conference, where our theme will be “RIPE for Disruption.” Here’s an early look at our speakers, to date.

CPG CHALLENGES, OPPORTUNITIES:
Rick Lenny
Chairman
IRI

FUTURE-FORWARD STRATEGY:
Nancy Giordano
Founder
Play Big Inc.

DISRUPTIVE INNOVATION:
Jon Sebastiani
Sonoma Brands (KRAVE jerky founder)

LEADING INNOVATIVE CHANGE:
Kristina Dermody
President
ARYZTA

GROWTH FORMULA! ORGANIC, COLD-PRESSED JUICE:
Jeff Church
CEO, Suja

INNOVATIVE NUTRITION:
Lisa Thorsten
Campbell Soup
Rachel Cheatham
Foodscape Group

DISRUPTIVE DESIGN THINKING:
Craig Dubitsky
CEO
Hello Products

CONSUMERS: THE SCIENCE OF WHY:
Dr. David Forbes
Forbes Consulting

ON-SHELF SUCCESS? CONSUMERS SOUND OFF:
Lynn Dornblaser
David Jago
Mintel Group

THE RETAIL REVOLUTION:
Barb Stuckey
President, Chief Innovation Officer
Mattson

Our speaker and topics list already is growing beyond what’s here!

Visit newproductsconference.com to learn more about additional speakers, as well as details about each presentation.