In a world where tech moves at the speed of swipe, food and beverage (F&B) brands face constant fluctuations that make it nearly impossible to design the perfect supply chain. Consumer trends shift fast, tariffs change overnight, and regulations never stop evolving. To keep up, traditional new product development (NPD) is giving way to networked product development—built for today’s pace, not yesterday’s playbook.

“A ‘perfect,’ cost-driven supply chain is too fragile. There will always be disruption. There will always be standstills. Instead of trying to make your supply chain perfect, you should focus on making it easier to manage so you can minimize risk and operate despite disruption.”

Marc Simony, Head of Product Strategy, TraceGains

Time for a fresh approach

As marketplace competition intensifies, as consumers become increasingly concerned about health, and as ESG (environmental, social, and governance) initiatives drive ideas, F&B companies have a choice to make: Are long-established approaches to NPD keeping up, or is it time to try something new?

New product development: The common approach

Historically, NPD is led by a single internal team that works in a vacuum (with little to no third-party input) to brainstorm, develop, and test new concepts.

Companies will commonly use expensive, time-consuming PLM (product lifecycle management) platforms to manage critical product data. Designed by engineers for engineers, these platforms are built to wrangle information, not connect users to real-time data so they can make decisions based on valuable insights.

Although NPD has been handled this way for decades, the combination of siloed data management and lack of agility results in long bench-to-shelf times and missed opportunities to respond to trends and insights.

Networked product development: The innovative approach

The future of F&B isn’t about new product development — it’s about networked product development.

Today, NPD is doing a complete 180 as it becomes a collaborative, unified effort. F&B companies are partnering with suppliers, third-party experts, and even consumers to improve ideation and development. Connected data must power this collaboration to accelerate, inform, and automate the process.

Because many PLM platforms can’t support timely collaboration, networked product development finds its footing in product innovation platforms that go far beyond managing formula and packaging data.

Rapid innovation through coordination and connection

From concept to production, networked product development is all about coordination and connection. It promotes automation over manual processes for better, faster innovation at every step, from recipe iteration to claims verification. As a result, this approach shortens ideation so F&B brands can get to market faster with more innovative, trend-responsive products.

Because networked product development changes the way F&B businesses operate, it also changes the technology required to support product development. As a complement to their PLMs, F&B companies need product innovation platforms.

Prioritizing collaboration

Networked product development takes place in a multi-user environment that encourages the entire organization to participate in the process.

Rather than working in a siloed system, your brand’s partners, quality specialists, regulatory professionals, and formulation experts must be able to come together on a unified, integrated platform.

Ensuring data flow

Networked product development prioritizes strategic, organization-wide initiatives like idea management, product strategy, sourcing and cost management, and holistic supply chain transformation.

To enable collaboration and automation, real-time data to support these efforts must seamlessly move across different people, processes, and systems. This interconnected flow of information allows users to track a product throughout its innovation lifecycle, from design and development to production.

Testing in a virtual environment

Instead of experimenting in real life, a production innovation platform can help F&B companies virtually build and test recipes using third-party and supplier-provided data.

“Because you can ideate multiple versions of recipes before even going to the bench,” says Simony, “you also create much less waste during the ideation process.”

From allergens and marketing claims to ingredient swaps, you can see how your experimental formulation will play out based on what’s available — and you can do it without spending time reaching out to vendors or actually manufacturing the product.

Once you verify that your product is perfect, then you can confidently connect with the vendors you want to work with to move to the bench.

Improving sustainability

With the simple click of a button, you can access third-party data to conduct and report on product lifecycle analyses. “This helps you decarbonize products faster by immediately uncovering your carbon footprint and Scope 3 emissions,” explains Simony.

Instead of gathering external data, ESG information moves seamlessly through your business ecosystem to make work risk-free and more efficient.

Determine where current and potential suppliers stand on ESG issues by tapping into real-time data about:

• Supplier sustainability rankings and participation in initiatives like CDP, UN Global Compact, and SBTI 

• Emission measurements and detailed emissions breakdowns of Scope 1, 2, and 3 emissions 

• Regional impact scores that compare the carbon intensity of different energy grids

Collaboration in product development equals resilience

A single disruption—like a vendor delay or ingredient shortage—can bring some F&B supply chains to a standstill. But companies focused on collaboration, automation, and networked NPD are better prepared to handle these interruptions.

“You may have to deal with more chaos today, but the right technology will make sure you have the right relationships and strategies in place to keep innovation moving forward.”

MARC SIMONY, HEAD OF PRODUCT STRATEGY, TRACEGAINS

Keeping up in today’s F&B landscape means letting go of outdated NPD methods and embracing networked, rapid innovation instead. To dive deeper, read the original article in Food Dive.

Learn more about how TraceGains’ networked product development solutions can help you innovate smarter and faster.