Societies with their social and political systems and their economic, environmental and future needs affect the consumers' behaviours and attitudes in addition to the legal controls on foods and so need to be integrated into product development. To ignore these in product development can lead to product failure and indeed sometimes to violent, anti-product reactions by the society. Innovation is related to change in society; there may be:

     change in economic status of the society so that there is first
        increased calorie and then increased protein consumption;

     decrease in the size of households causing a shift from bulk
        foods and jumbo packs to specialised foods and small packs;

     change in knowledge of the consumers causing change in the
        nutritional and aesthetic qualities of foods (Earle and Earle, 2000).

It is important to recognise changes that are occurring in economic status, society's behaviours and attitudes, so that products can be designed to fit into these changes (Earle and Earle, 2000). Specific attitudes can rapidly develop into political action, which can impose new regulations or indeed ban the new product.

An example of the effect of political country barriers on new product development is described in Box 1.3, showing the British attempts to stop a new product - spreadable butter from New Zealand.

Box 1.3 Political effects on product development Over a number of years, the New Zealand dairy industry developed a truly spreadable butter. Significant time and effort was put into the technical development of this product and into consumer testing in the target market, the United Kingdom. The launch of the product was a great success with good market up-take and repeat purchases. The signs for on-going market growth were very good. Then, with only little warning, the UK Customs banned the import of spreadable butter, based on a claimed non-compliance with regulatory requirements for butter. Subsequently, after a lengthy court battle and significant loss of market share, the decision was overturned.