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Food Innovation

Defining a future pipeline for food innovation in Central America and Colombia.

Food & Beverage

Human-centered Solutions

A leading global food company needed to define its short, medium, and long-term product pipeline for one of its key food categories across four Central American countries and Colombia. The challenge was to understand the diverse consumption habits and market dynamics in each region to create a strategic roadmap for future product launches that would address both current and emerging consumer needs.

Through comprehensive market analysis, we identified 7 key motivators (or triggers) of food consumption. These insights provided a detailed understanding of the opportunities and challenges in each market, highlighting the areas where innovation could drive growth. From this, 5 strategic platforms—or opportunity territories—were defined. These platforms became the foundation for designing innovative product concepts that would meet both the current demands and future expectations of consumers.

The project was executed in two phases. In the first phase, in-depth research was conducted in each country, where we tracked potential consumers to identify their 'Jobs to be Done' and key motivators for food consumption. In the second phase, we facilitated workshops with local and regional teams, co-designing product concepts and prototypes with consumers and stakeholders. This collaborative process allowed us to evaluate the drivers of like and dislike, helping refine product ideas.

To ensure that the concepts were aligned with market trends and consumer desires, we applied an AI-driven tool to generate and refine over 85 product concepts. These concepts were quantitatively evaluated across the 5 markets to assess desirability, viability, and feasibility.

This project enabled the company to establish a strategic pipeline for product innovation over the next 5 years. By leveraging insights from consumer behavior and market trends, the company now has a clear roadmap to launch new products that will resonate with their target markets, ensuring sustained growth and relevance across Central America and Colombia.

Identified consumer motivators led to five innovation platforms for new food products.