Collaboration between Culinary Institute of American (CIA) Consulting Services Group and the US National Food Lab brings significant advancements in the area of food and beverage product development
For the first time, the culinary expertise of the CIA has been formally combined with the product development and commercialisation strengths of the National Food Lab to create a unique culinary-driven concept development process.
Over the course of a one-week time frame, NFL and the CIA will identify and deliver consumer-validated culinary concepts that can be readily translated to innovative, commercially-viable food products.
"Our goal is the delivery of high-quality, tested culinary concepts that can be quickly converted into successful commercial products," said Kevin Buck, president of the National Food Lab.
"It's the combination of culinary arts with product development and commercialization expertise that truly makes this offering unique, innovative and compelling".
The week-long process begins with a three-day collaborative session at CIA's Greystone or Hyde Park, NY, campus.
During this session, a cross-functional client team is joined by specialists from NFL and chefs from CIA to brainstorm across different product platforms, create culinary protocepts, and design commercialisation punch lists.
The winning concepts and protocepts are then evaluated by consumers at the end of the week in a concept-product test.
Results are captured and used to prioritise concepts for future product development.
Benefits of the culinary-driven concept development process to food industry clients include:.
Speed - In one week a client will progress from concept to winning protocepts, gold standard recipes and commercialisation roadmaps to guide future development.
The Culinary Institute of America brings global flavours and cuisines into the process, and delivers innovation through authenticity and differentiation.
The most difficult aspect of culinary recipe development is translation to commercial products.
The combined talents of CIA and NFL allow this to happen smoothly.
Cross-functional client teams participate in three days of exercises, creating buy-in to the process and ownership of the results.
The combined efforts of key stakeholders in the session saves months of product development time, speeds products to shelf, and creates competitive market advantages.
"The strategic collaboration between NFL and CIA is an exciting initiative; it will result in positive impact for both organizations in product and menu innovation," said Victor Gielisse, head of CIA Consulting Services Group.
"Ultimately, the results of our combined expertise will reaffirm our positions as key players in the dynamic and demanding field of food service consultancy."
