The food industry has its own specific problems in managing product development:

     Biological raw materials.
     Seasonality of raw materials.
     Complex interactions in the food system.
     Interrelationship of processing conditions and product qualities.
     Direct relationship between the product and the nutrition of the
        consumers.
     Complex relationships between products and health for different
        groups of people.
     Instability of food products.
     Continuous supply and buying of food products.

There are problems in designing new fresh fruit and vegetable products because it takes time to develop new types, new varieties - by the time they are developed the consumer may have other needs and desires, or food retailing may have changed. Predictions have to be long term and there is usually the need to develop a range so that changes can be accommodated. There is usually only one season a year, or two by incorporating northern and southern hemispheres, so that development and testing is difficult. Fresh fruit and vegetables and whole chilled fish and now live fish, are growing markets and there is a need to study the management of product development for these fresh products.

Because of the product/process interaction, product design is integrated with processing development. Often in other industries product design and production design are two separate activities, done in series; but this is not possible in the food industry. Hence the second stage is called product design and process development. The consumer nutritional and health relations with the product are a vital part of food product development, especially in the future when products are going to be designed for specific effects in the human body instead of general nutrition. This will mean an ethical responsibility and will lead to product development similar to the pharmaceutical industry with a great deal of ethical testing. Because of food instability, the research on distribution is vital in food product development. The shelf-life in storage and the change in quality during transport are important parts of the product development process. Many products have failed because of a rush to the market without shelf-life trials, with disastrous quality results - better to spend time on testing than money on removing from the supermarket shelves.

Finally there is the continuous buying of food which leads to placing of more new products on the market. There usually is need for a continuous product development programme, which leads to more forward product planning and a rolling product mix. This needs efficient and effective planning and control in product development (Stinson, 1996).