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Creating novel strategies to boost umami, and maximise business value
Umami is the rich ‘savoury’ taste in tomatoes, meat, seafood and more. While we know it when we taste it, there are still many questions about how it works. PepsiCo asked Innovia to review cutting-edge umami science and develop novel strategies for use in its products.
We reviewed state-of-the-art umami knowledge, considering consumer and legal aspects as well as science. We generated ideas for maximising umami taste, matched with products they would suit, before working with the client to prioritise and specify next steps. We built a roadmap showing how these and other related R&D activities fit together to support higher-level company strategy.
The client received 30 ideas for how to incorporate the very latest science into their products. Ten research workstreams are planned based on this work, continuing the journey from science insights into products that bring joy – and market share. The roadmap document we developed, connecting technical projects to high-level strategies, is being used internally to maintain alignment across the business.
Innovia’s Understand, Explore, Decide approach enabled the generation of novel strategies in a technically complex area of food science – umami – that were both actionable and value-driving.
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