Integral CPG

Attending PLMA - Private Label Manufacturers Association show in Chicago next week? Our co-founder, Rifle Hughes will be walking the floor Monday, November 18. Reach out if you'd like to connect and catch up at the show!

???Happy Halloween, everyone!??? As we embrace the spooky season, let’s take a moment to enjoy the fun and creativity that comes with it. Whether you’re dressing up in your favorite costume, carving pumpkins, or just indulging in some sweet treats, we hope you have a fantastic time! Halloween is a great reminder to let our imaginations run wild and to connect with our inner child. It’s also a perfect opportunity to share some light-hearted moments with colleagues, friends, and family. And special thanks to Clare Pappalardo, our in-house Creative for this spirit-filled drawing! Wishing you all a safe, fun, and spook-tacular Halloween! ????? #HappyHalloween #SpookySeason #FunTimes

If you’ve ever spent time in a dentist’s office or yoga studio, or watched any kind of retrospective graduation video, you’ve probably heard the music of 1990s global new-age sensation Enya. But would you know Enya’s more…unusual contemporary, Virtuous Amoeba? Now that’s a different question. Susan Olviolo, the founder of Virtuous Amoeba, has a guess: “Absolutely not.” Olviolo was at UC Santa Cruz in the early 90s as Enya first blossomed on the US music scene. Helping to pay tuition through a part-time job as scheduler at a cosmetology practice, she was among the first Americans to get exposure to the Irish singer, and it struck a chord for Olviolo, a music major and vocalist herself. “I was sitting in this office 30+ hours a week, with dim, natural lighting and smelling constantly of eucalyptus and peyote, and this disorienting, almost mystical, music just bludgeoned its way into my psyche.” Olviolo recalled, “And I thought, ‘Well, sh*t, I can do?that.” The name Virtuous Amoeba came to Olviolo during a fever dream produced by tainted half-price sushi from a local Santa Cruz dive bar. “I wanted something that would be as ambiguous and spineless as the music I envisioned, but still kind of…positive, you know?” she explained. Discussing the idea with classmates in the music program, it didn’t take long to gather talented potential bandmates. However, Olviolo decided she wouldn’t have a set band, but rather would employ a rotating cast of supporting musicians and vocalists. While such an approach wasn’t unheard of, her method for choosing who to work with…was.? Thumb wrestling. “I come from a big family of thumbies,” Olviolo explained. “My mother was actually a two-time state champ back in Iowa before she came west, so it was just how we settled things at home.” This unconventional method not only forged a unique band culture but led to an atypical collection of instruments used. “Musicians with stronger finger muscles wrestled me best, so they got the gigs.??Piano, keyboard, some woodwinds…these are the folks with good thumbwork, so that’s who we had.” This created Virtuous Amoeba’s unmistakable sound, a synthesizer-oboe foundation with Olviolo’s raspy vocals providing an air of mystery and…something else. “People often ask me if I’ve got a cold, which is nice, because it means they care, I think”, Olviolo shares. This sinus-led tone aligned well with the name of Amoeba’s third – and biggest - album, ‘Climatic Pressures’, which soared to #57 on the Adult Contemporary chart. Variety called Pressures, ‘confusing’ and ‘disconcerting’, while Billboard went further, labelling it a ‘haunting triumph – for all the wrong reasons’. Despite the critical reception, Amoeba has continued making music and playing shows at malls, corporate events and wellness retreats around the US for nearly three decades. Asked about the secret to the band’s longevity, Olviolo offers a simple answer: “I’ve got a paying day job.” #bandnamegame #corporatehumor

At Integral CPG, we believe that there is no one way that ambitious innovations should enter the market, nor even one point in time in which they’ve truly and fully ‘entered’. Ambitious innovations that succeed often do so because they’ve put as much thought into *how* the product will interact with consumers over its initial life, and for what purposes.? This includes considering the?entire universe?of ‘channels’ to get into consumer’s hands and lives, in order to curate the right portfolio of pathways over a series of release ‘moments’. So, it made us very happy to see Denise Woodard’s article in Inc. Magazine (link below) speaking to the value of considering ‘non-traditional’ distribution channels as part of the strategy of bringing new products to consumers. It’s an effective and powerful reminder that innovative thinking doesn’t stop with what goes in or on the package; sometimes the manner in which that package makes its way into a target consumer’s world can be just as creative and disruptive. Thanks to Denise for a great read on a great topic – definitely check it out!

Since Integral CPG launched in May, we’ve shared several posts on the concept of ambitious innovation and have outlined the three key challenges companies face in this area.? ? This week, to demonstrate what can be achieved when looking beyond solely the product in an ambitious innovation initiative, we examine the introduction of the Heinz Remix machine from 2023 where, by integrating diverse expertise and fostering a collaborative environment, Kraft Heinz created a groundbreaking product that generated significant recognition, interest and business impact. #ambitiousinnovation

Continuing the journey of sharing Integral's perspective on innovation and strategic thinking, our cofounder Glenn Pappalardo provides thoughts in this month's Commercial Baking on the valuable, but sometimes messy, process of obtaining (and maintaining) competitive intelligence. Add it to your weekend reading list!

Each month, we like to take a moment to spotlight one of the various partners we work with at Integral who we feel not only does fantastic work, but does it in a way worthy of appreciation. While our Integral approach is reliant on the expertise and character resident within the company, it also leans heavily on the ‘ecosystem’ of other service providers with whom we collaborate, assemble our teams and deliver our work. For October, we are turning the Integral Partner Spotlight on Insomnia Insights and its one-of-a-kind founder, Arwen Kimmell. We’ve known and worked with Arwen for over a decade and, quite simply, nobody understands the Purpose-Driven, Natural & Organic and Wellness consumer in food and beverage better. Arwen has spent a career building an appreciation of this community, and maybe even a lifetime, having grown up in the aisles of one of the country’s early natural food co-ops in Fort Wayne, Indiana. From there, she’s built an amazing foundation of knowledge and skills in understanding humans and their needs and motivations. Ranging from a PhD in Anthropology, to years with food and beverage consumer research pioneer Hartman Group, to a variety of consumer and brand-facing roles across some of the biggest and most cause-driven businesses in the industry, Arwen has seen this consumer through multiple lenses and kept pace as its attitudes, preferences and even values have evolved over the years. But Arwen’s true superpower is her ability to wield this knowledge and skillset in ways that are so welcoming and accessible to others. Whether contributing on a project call or leading an ideation session, she has an innate ability to bring others ‘in’, fostering open and constructive dialogue, even on challenging topics. And the results speak for themselves – client after client who not only praises the experience, but who forges lasting bonds with Arwen that carry on after the project (or even their tenure at the client) is done. Which in turn gives Arwen an incredible network of ardent supporters who are always willing to step up and help her out on future efforts. She has channeled all of this goodness into Insomnia Insights, a boutique consultancy focused on providing strategic insights for food and beverage companies to support brand development, innovation and overall growth. And whether it’s segmentation, equity foundations, brand comms, trends or facilitation, we’ve yet to find something at which she doesn’t excel, and we simply love working with her. Not surprisingly, our clients and other partners do too. If you have a need for fractional or project-based insights support, or even coaching and training in the space, then you need to reach out to Insomnia. We can assure you that you’ll be glad you did (we always are)! #ambitiousinnovation #foodandbeverageinnovation #insights

Chicago is one of the world’s great food cities with a vibrant tapestry of diverse culinary adventures, from gritty to avant-garde. Its rich food culture is why entrepreneurs, chefs, and household-favorite brands proudly call the city home, and it’s why we often find ourselves drawn there when we are seeking inspiration and creative spaces to fuel our Ambitious Innovation efforts. Last week, Chicago gave us all that and more! Working alongside our client’s functional leaders, we used Integral CPG's business-centric approach to explore and identify viable growth opportunities for their brand. We call this Molecular Ideation as it draws on all areas of the business for sources of innovation, not just the traditional hyper-focus on product ideas. While still firmly grounded in brand and consumer, this method quickly generates, iterates, and builds high potential, ‘three dimensional’ ideas that include a working understanding of how they could come to life. With this uniquely effective approach and fantastic engagement from our combined team, we’re super excited for what we created together. The next chapter of the brand’s growth is coming into focus! #ambitiousinnovation #foodandbeverageinnovation?#chicago

For our second installment of the Integral band game, we salute Eric Stief for inspiring: Financial Mindshaft! Barry Griffiths didn’t mean to create the world’s most famous accounting-oriented metal band. He just wanted a hobby to add spice to his days as assistant vice controller of the Liverpool Cage Works. While a steady paycheck at England’s leading maker of wire pet crates wasn’t something to take for granted, it lacked spontaneity.?With Black Sabbath and Iron Maiden?as inspiration, Griffiths pursued guitar lessons. It wasn't meant to be anything more than a diversion, until the famed Annual Convention of British Managerial Accountancy and Risk Management in 1989. It was at ACBMARM where Griffiths met Helen Thomson, the woman who would become not only his bandmate, but soulmate. Thomson was lead accountant for Peckham’s, a chain of delis in Glasgow. She too was not only looking for something ‘more’, but shared a deep passion for metal. She also had something else – one of the world’s most unique voices. The daughter of a failed cruise-line singer, Thomson was well-trained in vocal arts. And with a five-octave range and heavy Glaswegian accent, there was no one else who sounded like her. “She had the voice of angel,” Griffiths recalled to SPIN in 1997, “A really vexed angel that not a soul could understand, but an angel nonetheless.” As they fell for each other, they also fell for something else: the idea of their own band. Built on their love of heavy metal – with a twist. As Thomson tells it, “We’re hoachin’ for an idea, and just about to patch it, and Barry says, ‘let’s write our songs about GAAP’. I thought ‘aye right, yir oan tae plums’, that it was pish and he was a pure dolly. But in time…I saw it as pure dead brilliant.” A set of bandmates was rounded up, and all that was left was a name – Financial Mineshaft. Why? Griffiths explained, “We loved the idea of music built around accounting and wanted to take it somewhere dark. Being from where we’re from…we knew about mines.” After building a following in cities like Dumfries and Barrow-in-Furness, the band broke through in 1992, when they were named happy hour entertainment for the Financial Reporting Council’s ‘Standards Fest’ in Brighton. With the English Channel as backdrop, the group unleashed their sound, and word spread quickly. A debut album,?Inventory of Impetus, followed, and the band became the voice of suppressed accounting and financial numeracy professionals throughout the British Isles. Their arc peaked in 1995, when they played the rear auxiliary stage at the Glastonbury Festival, wowing hundreds. After three more albums, Financial Mineshaft declared musical bankruptcy. As Thomson told The Glasgow Times in 2000, ‘We’re scunnered, but money in accounting metal isn’t peach, and we’re runnin’ out of annual leave to make gigs. I’ll always love Mineshaft, but it’s gone from asset…to liability.” #integralbandgame

Earlier this month, we came upon?this post from our friend Richard Peake at Merchant Gourmet in the UK, and it really struck a chord with us. We obviously spend a lot of time talking about ambitious innovation and its benefits and challenges, but sometimes it’s nice to step back and think innovation efforts in general, too.?And Richard’s post hit on a point that probably doesn’t get talked about enough: Successful innovation is a marathon, not a sprint. Often, companies can fall into the habit of thinking about innovation as a collection of semi-related efforts that, loosely knitted together, form the whole of their innovation efforts. And this behavior is understandable – at most companies, innovation is only talked about in holistic terms at specific (sometimes sporadic) points along the annual calendar. In between, different team members are engaging with their own subsets of the innovation puzzle, be it a single project, a set of initiatives or even a mini-portfolio. So, it’s only natural that one can begin to think of these efforts as their own self-contained worlds and, by extension, start to judge their success or failure in isolation. But that’s actually not how innovation works.??Or at least not how it *should* work. Successful innovation is a continuous, perpetual and holistic pursuit in which any one specific opportunity represents – at its core - another chance to iterate, and improve upon, the broader approach.? And no one opportunity can ever truly ‘win’ or ‘lose’, because: a) that would require thinking of them as ‘complete’, which is a falsehood, and b) any individual effort, regardless of its own specific outcomes, *always* has value to the wider pursuit, because every attempt to innovate offers learning. This is what was so great to us in reading about what Richard and Merchant Gourmet did with their Plant Jars and Mighty Meals in Minutes product innovations. Instead of viewing the Plant Jars effort in isolation and deeming it a ‘failure’ to be moved on from, they used it as impetus for the next attempt – one more iteration in a journey of iterations, each an opportunity to make the next one better. And then, they did better. And because of this, Mighty Meals in Minutes are off and running, tomorrow is a new day…and the marathon continues. Congrats and good luck to the Merchant Gourmet team, and thanks for the helpful reminder! ??