InsightsNow, a behavioral research firm, in partnership with CuliNex, a clean label product development consulting firm for the food industry, have released a new product development solution called CRAEVS (an acronym for Clean Label Research through Agile Evolutions into Stores). The companies brought together their respective consumer insights and culinary innovation expertise to build this end-to-end solution for food and beverage company’s innovation efforts.
“The solution is a first for the food industry. It brings together the creativity of culinary experts, inspired and guided by consumer insights, to accelerate cost effective product development timelines,” said Dave Lundahl, CEO and founder of InsightsNow. “The all-in-one solution not only streamlines the process from initial opportunity all the way to the store shelf to deliver cleaner, healthier food product alternatives sought by consumers, it is especially needed during current times to help companies overcome the workflow disruptions caused by the ongoing pandemic.”
The CRAEVS Solution was built to take food product and marketing teams through five sprints in a completely integrated process:
• Category Review: Understand competitive space and potential consumers
• Concepting and Co-Creation: Gather qualitative consumer data and refine concepts
• Prototyping and Co-Design: Develop and measure effectiveness of target prototypes
• Commercialization & Packaging: Scale production conditions and match prototype to goals
• Retail Store or Home Use Testing: Validate the product and get shelf performance feedback
The five phases are implemented through a single team formed by InsightsNow and CuliNex, structured to bring together culinary and food science innovation with insights from consumers in a rapid iterative manner.
“By using insights-driven research, we are able to partner together to inspire, guide and validate the product development process,” said Mark Crowell, CEO of CuliNex. “Between our two teams, we have 100+ years of development experience that can help food and beverage companies say ahead of trends—particularly for clean label products.”
