Food Product Development

Food Product Development refers to the multi-step process of creating a new food product, from initial ideation through to commercial launch.
This involves identifying market opportunities, formulating new concepts, adapting recipes for mass production, testing the product and finally marketing it to the target audience.
Food scientists, food technologists, marketing professionals and other stakeholders collaborate in this process, ensuring the product meets dietary restrictions, has shelf-life stability, and meets consumer’s taste preferences.

Stages of Food Product Development

Idea Generation is the first stage, involving brainstorming and collecting ideas based on current trends, consumer needs, or marketing research.
Concept Development is where a functional brief is devised, outlining the new product’s parameters such as target audience, pricing, nutritional profile, and flavour profile.
Prototype Development involves creating physical samples of the product, using bench-top models and then, pilot plant trials.
In Product Evaluation stage, the prototypes are tested for their physical, chemical, microbiological properties and acceptability to the consumer.
Scale-Up refers to scaling up the process for commercial production, ensuring consistent quality and functionality across batches.
Market Testing is when test markets are used to gain insights on consumer acceptance of the product and fine-tune marketing strategies.
Launch is the final stage, involving full scale production and distribution, advertising and promotional activities.

A successful food product must meet consumer needs and wants, therefore, market and consumer research play a vital role in food product development.
Market research involves understanding the current food trends, competitor products, regulatory requirements, and pricing strategies.
Consumer research helps in understanding consumer’s eating habits, taste preferences, dietary constraints, and willingness to pay. This is done through surveys, focus groups or taste tests.

Sensory evaluations are crucial to ensure that the developed product meets the expectations concerning taste, texture, aroma, and appearance.
These evaluations help to optimise the recipe or manufacturing parameters, while also discerning consumer’s acceptance of the product.

In today’s health conscious era, nutritional content is a major factor in the success of a food product.
Nutritional formulation has to balance with product taste and texture.
The Product must adhere to governmental regulations on nutrition labelling and health claims.

Food processing and manufacturing techniques need to be adapted for mass production without compromising the food quality or nutritional content.
Processing Parameters have to be optimised to ensure stability, safety and functionality of the product.
Shelf life and packaging studies are imperative for preserving the product’s stability until it reaches the consumer.

Quality assurance plays a pivotal role in food product development.
All potential hazards should be identified and addressed through a HACCP plan.
Consistent quality checks and adhering to good manufacturing practices (GMP) are integral parts of producing high-quality food products.

Sometimes, existing products might need to be updated or reformulated to meet changing consumer demands or trends. This is called a product relaunch.
A product relaunch may involve changing the recipe, package design, branding or marketing strategy.
Similar steps of food product development process are adopted for a product relaunch.