When you savour every mouthful of your favourite packaged food, you probably don’t think about how it came to be on the shelf in the first place.
This is what food manufacturers want – we put a lot of time and effort into making sure your taste buds approve.
Our article briefly explains the main stages behind your favourite foods, drinks and supplements.
But first, what is food product development?
Food product development explains the steps a business takes to create a new food product and put it on the market (or alternatively: refine an established product). This process demands a lot of planning, creativity, experimentation and testing.
It usually takes anywhere between several months to five years to develop a new food product.
The product development team includes food scientists, marketing specialists, regulatory experts, manufacturers, researchers and testers. Many companies don’t have these resources, so they outsource the entire food production process (or parts of it) to a contract food manufacturer.
What is the importance of food product development?
Businesses develop new food products (or alter existing ones) for a number of reasons:
- Grow revenue and market share
- Stay competitive in the industry
- Gain new customers by satisfying food trends as preferences change
- Reach new geographic markets
- Gain new customers by catering to dietary requirements
- Adhere to changing laws and regulations
Food product development steps:
The stages of food product development are far more detailed than what this article explores. Here’s a brief overview of what’s involved, to give you an idea:
Idea creation: The marketing team comes up with an idea based on their market research, and the product development team then refines this idea.
Screening and testing: A team of food scientists creates a prototype in the test kitchen. There’s a lot of experimentation and tasting in-house. The product is then tested on a wider scale by people outside the company, and alterations are made before going to the next step.
Product development: This involves refining the recipe, more testing, sourcing ingredients, manufacturing on a mass scale, applying quality control, packaging and storing the product hygienically.
Marketing and rollout: The final step is launching the product, which involves marketing to targeted customers and figuring out the best timing for launch. Feedback from customers plays an important role during this stage, as it helps to determine if any modifications are required in the future.
Are you looking to engage a contract food manufacturer for product development?
Omniblend is a contract food manufacturer, our sole focus is product development and manufacturing. We have more than 40 years’ experience in contract food manufacturing so are well placed to assist with your product manufacturing requirements.
Our experienced team can handle as little or as much of your food product development and manufacturing needs as requested.
We produce a range of dry health and nutraceutical products. This includes high protein powders, sports nutrition products, aseptic drinks, electrolyte drinks and nutritional blends.
Our food technologists can either:
- use your existing formula for manufacturing
- improve your existing formula
- create new products from scratch
If you would like more information, or to arrange a meeting, please contact us on (03) 9358 6388