Working towards product customization: An example of successful initiative

On paper, innovating is easy: a simple understanding of what your consumers/customers want, and then you provide it. And if possible, make sure that you deliver it faster than your competitors, with higher quality. However, according to studies, 80% of innovations fail. It's a pretty high number, isn't it?

To strengthen their capacity for innovation and develop new products that meet the desires of their customers in a better way, companies are increasingly turning to a personalized product development approach, especially using collaborations.

At Agropur, innovation is at the heart of our business.

We work hand in hand with our business partners to achieve innovations that meet the needs of their customers. Here, we'll show you some successful custom product development initiative and some key takeaways.

This fast-food franchise chain owns approximately 16,000 restaurants in more than 100 countries and 400 establishments across Canada. We are proud to be their official cheese supplier since 1997. Despite these many years of collaboration, we have never taken our business relationship for granted and are committed to anticipating their future needs.

Traditionally, the development of new products followed a linear process that included suppliers (like us) only occasionally, if at all. But we have to face the facts: consumer tastes change and evolve at high speed; it is getting increasingly more difficult to keep and retain their attention. Let's just see what's happening in the milk market: inflation, lactose intolerance, rising demand for plant-based beverages, etc. How can we remain inventive and proactive in this context?

Product personalization forces companies to push the limits, to be on the lookout and to move faster on what is happening in our respective market.

Collaboration can be THE way to find new market opportunities, to push the brand image of the product in new directions or even establish a presence in an entirely new market.

So how do we create at Agropur?

We've told you and we'll say it again: innovation is part of our company's DNA. We have a dedicated internal research and development department as well as a marketing team constantly on the lookout for trends for our customers. In practice, we:

1. Identify a particular need from our partners;
2. Create a business review, trend report, etc. to come up with ideas for new products;
3. Listen to our partner's needs: their priorities, how many innovations need to be developed, etc.;
4. Find ideas for new products to develop that we validate with the reality of our partner (technical reality, etc.);
5. We develop products with follow-ups and exchanges throughout the creation before the launch in the market. Collaboration is essential from the beginning to the end of the process.

In the case of our fast food chain client, we created two new stuffed crust products based on Gen Z tastes.

Result?

We managed to:

• Adjust our products to the tastes of Gen Z;
• Create excitement with a limited time offer;
• Add a new premium product offer.

Joining forces through custom product development not only resulted in the creation of new, innovative and highly-performing products but also built a close relationship between our development, sourcing and marketing teams.