SUPPLIER COLLABORATION AND OPEN INNOVATION TO ACCELERATE FOOD PRODUCT DEVELOPMENT
Mary Lynne Shafer, Yadunandan Lal Dar · 2017
This chapter focuses on how leveraging an ingredient supplier could offer greater success and faster on-shelf presence to capture sustainable market share. The focus is on what the supplier sees and what some of the challenges are, and how a customer might be able to further leverage suppliers to help get to the endgame of successful products and faster product launches. This chapter describes how suppliers can impact this process including a case study to show how supplier collaboration can enable success in a complex multi-faceted product development initiative. Network access can lead to opportunities for open innovation and significant skill synergies in open innovation projects. Case study described in the chapter addresses texture challenges of salad dressing through novel formulation approaches. This is a good example of how a supplier, like ingredion, can add significant value to the customer's product development process using their products, services as well as expertise.