Creating New Foods. The Product Developer's Guide - Product Strategy Development: Product Concepts and Product Design Specifications

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Contents

About the book

About the authors

Preface

development project

2. The organisation of

development project

3. Product strategy

development: idea

screening

4. Product strategy

development: product

concepts and design

specifications

5. Product design and

process development

commercialisation

7. Product launch and

evaluation

8. Summary: bringing

it together

8.10 Textbooks in

product development

Index of Examples &

Problems

Feedback (email link)

CHAPTER 4
Product Strategy Development:
Product design specifications

Project Break 4

For either your own project or Project 4 at the end of the chapter (below):

Develop the product concepts for the two product ideas.

Evaluate these product concepts according to consumer, marketing and technical needs.

Ask some technical people in the company to rate these two product concepts on important factors such as raw material availability; ease of processing, shelf life, predicted costs of the products. Ask the marketing people to rate the product concepts according to what they see as the important marketing factors: suitability for retailers, ease of promotion, advertising strength, price. Ask the marketing and the technical people to predict the market and the possible sales.

With all this information, select the product most suitable for further development.

For this product, develop the product design specifications from the product concept.

You need to collect information on the type of product, the way in which it will be used, the people who will buy it, the people who will eat it, the market where it will be sold and the ways it might be processed and packed. The most economical methods should be used for this research, which is mainly desk research within the company and also external published information.

For technical information, the sources of information are company processing and raw material records, textbooks, review articles and appropriate web sites.

For marketing information, the company records and industry information is used, and there may also be commercial and government statistics.

Project 4
The New Era for Dried Vegetables

Modern dried foods have been on the British market for over fifty years, starting with chicken noodle soup and leading to the wide variety of soups, gravies, sauces, snacks and meals available. Consumer demand for healthy, fresh-like and convenient food is putting some pressure on the manufacturers to improve the quality of these products. Consumer demand has increased for processed products that retain their original characteristics. In industrial terms, this requires the development of operations that minimise the adverse effects of processing. In food drying, there is a loss of volatiles and flavours, changes in colour and texture and a decrease in nutritional value. Furthermore, residual enzyme activity and microbial activity in dried foods affect the product quality during storage and the length of the storage life.

Microwave drying is a new process which is starting to be used in the food industry worldwide, mostly for the drying of pasta and post-baking of biscuits. Microwave drying of fruit and vegetables is developing, and is used industrially in the UK.

A company has been investigating the use of microwave drying in preparing flavouring materials such as mushrooms and peppers, and have produced ideas for two products:

A mix of dried green peppers, tomatoes and garlic which can be sprinkled on salads,

for consumers who eat fresh foods. The peppers and tomatoes are chopped.

A dry tomato/mushroom sauce which can be mixed with cold water. The tomatoes

and mushrooms are in small pieces. The cold sauce can be mixed with chopped

cooked meats, chopped fresh vegetables or cold cooked pasta to give salad type meals.

Some of the general flavour/aroma characteristics of dried green peppers, tomatoes and garlic that have been identified are: fruity/fresh, sweet, sour, grassy, cucumber, earthy, sharp. They also have specific tomato, mushroom and green pepper flavours and aromas. Texture descriptions for dried vegetables have been juiciness, toughness.

(Reprinted from Nijhuis H.H., Torringa H.M., Muresan S., Yuksel D., Leguijt C. and Kloek W. (1998) ‘Approaches to improving the quality of dried fruit and vegetables', Trends in Food Science and Technology, 9, 13-20 with permission from Elsevier Science.)

CHAPTER 5: PRODUCT DESIGN & PROCESS DEVELOPMENT

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Creating New Foods. The Product Developer's Guide. Copyright © Chartered Inst. of Environmental Health.
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