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Bize Size Blog: New Product Development
Monday, September 19, 2016 - 10:30
Would you like to have the satisfaction of seeing a food or drink product you made, in a UK store? New Product Development (NPD) may be for you. This kind of work is good for creative minds and those who want to innovate. NPD comes under the marketing department of business. In food and drink, NPD is especially important because food goods compete against each other a lot and they sell very high unit quantities. Therefore, keeping food and drink up to date and attractive to customers is essential.
In the academic world of NPD there is a specific 8-step diagram made just for this which shows the different stages of the NPD process and how to structure your New Product Development. It was developed by Dr. Robert G. Cooper in the 1980’s and looks like this…
The basic explanation to these 8 steps starts with an idea and develops down the line to finally be launched and become a commercial product.
Tasty Careers has seen its fair share of Ambassadors going into this part of the food and drink industry. Some of them are New Product Development Technologists, Coordinators and Managers at 2 Sisters Food Group (the company that makes amazing brands such as Fox’s biscuits and Goodfella’s Pizzas!), ABP UK (who provide a lot of supermarkets with their ‘own label’ meats) & Addo Food Group (who are the company with awesome brands such as Walls Sausages, and Pork Farms Pies!).
So what’s the difference? Well a Technologist assesses the product from start to finish and may carry out trials to test the product and look at the technicalities of a product. A Coordinator keeps the NPD team on track and organises what the product development concepts are.
Product development takes place in an existing market. So in, an example in the food & drink industry could be a chocolate milk company who have launched a new strawberry milk product. On the other hand, if the new product is in a new market this would be known as diversification. For example, the chocolate milk company has now decided to start selling t-shirts. This means the product line has diversified because they are in completely different markets. One product is in the food and drink industry and the new product is in the clothing industry.
