Live R&D – New Product Development

People are often unclear about what I actually do but the truth is I spend most of my time trying out new things or researching what other people are doing and turning it into reports, training programmes, videos – or in this case pots of chutney.

Traditionally, in the businesses that we have run, I’m the one to find new things to try, pioneer ways of approaching it and conduct the initial tango with the market. Once the product and the approach is standardised I’d train up the person who’s going to run with it and then move on to the next project. When we used to sell CAD products for a living then, I’d choose the next piece of software to sell, learn it, work out how to sell it and then pick one of the sales staff to take it on.

Of course now that we are working largely virtually, the act of tangoing with the market takes place largely through the offices of Google and Amazon by putting products on line, driving some traffic to the landing page and observing what words attract interest and noting what sells. The analytic side of marketing if you like. This is what I’ve been doing with the Intelligent Garden over the last 18 months.

It a way it’s the same old 4 step process
1) Talk to the customers
2) Find out what they want
3) Work out how to give it to them
4) Do it

However it’s often the face to face bit that’s really the most important. After all, I started the Intelligent Garden when I got bored with people telling me how wonderful their allotments were as a reason for not buying my Spinach so I thought about what I might sell them.

So onto the current project. We often get a surplus of stuff in the glasshouses that are more than our usual customer base can absorb. Spinach, Tomatoes, Aubergines, Chillies, Peppers. We’re also thinking about how we can add more value to what we grow. So this summer I’ve been given the Foodie project.

This has involved finding out what you have to do to make and sell food products (as opposed to just veg). Creating and testing recipes. Sourcing the jars and labels – finding a certified kitchen to make the stuff in, making some batches and taking them out on the farmers market to see what sells. And what lasts.

So far we’ve made spinach pate, ricotta and herb, tomato and chilli relish, salsa, passata, tomato and courgette chutney, calamondins marmalade and plum jam. The spinach pate, passata and tomato and chilli relish all seem strong sellers based on getting people to try them and seeing what they buy.

I’ve still to go through the rest of the year but by next spring I’ll have proven recipes for half a dozen products which I’ll probably get made (although I can hire the kitchen a lot of times before I’d need to buy one of my own.)
The health and safety aspects of this are challenging – I’m the proud possessor of a level 2 certificate in Manufacturing Food Hygiene and I’ve had to get bar codes and learn all about HACCP. It was actually quite interesting and some of the food hygiene stuff was moderately scary.

However the steps of the process are absolutely accurate. The creative bit is making the recipes and testing them on the customers. However the future of the brand will depend on consistency of the product and how well we tell the story.

On this occasion it’s not been necessary to use survey monkey.

However in (totally) random poll of WCP members 3 out of 4 people when asked whether they’d rather buy my book on Social Media or a pot of chutney said “Chutney Please”

Alan Rae - find out more at http://alanrae.co.uk