ALIGNING BETTER WITH CONSUMER NEEDS: A FRESH APPROACH TO FRUITS AND VEGETABLES

The world of fruit and vegetable consumption is ever-evolving, driven by consumer trends and needs. Yet, despite the increasing awareness of the health benefits of these food groups, consumers are still not eating enough fruits and vegetables. To bridge this gap, we need to come up with concepts that excite them and align better with their needs. Inspired by trends on social media platforms such as TikTok, Instagram, and Pinterest, and shaped in consumer co-creation, we aim to develop innovative concepts for fruits and vegetables that resonates with today's consumers.

Consumer Trends and Concept Development

Our process begins with comprehensive desk research where we identify the most interesting consumer trends related to your crop or category. This research unveils insights into trending health practices, platter preferences, snacking habits, and prepping trends. From these trends, we define the most intriguing insights and show how they can be translated into new concepts working with our designers and AI for your category. These concepts range from new usages and flavor combinations to kits/platters and food hacks.

Bringing Trends to Life: A Look at Our Process

Let's use the grape category as an example. We've noticed a trend within the "healthy desserts/snacking" category where consumers are freezing green grapes and adding seasonings like lemon juice, sugar, and dips. The crunchy texture of frozen grapes and the unique eating sensation reminds consumers of a Festini ice cream. Our concept translation for this insight involves offering snack packaging (DIY kit) with white (and purple) grapes that can be put in the freezer with seasoning/dips. Positioned as a healthy snack/dessert, these can be found in the fridge area next to other fruit snacks.

The potato category presents another interesting trend. With the rise of "healthy snacking" in a calorie-deficit diet, consumers are enjoying potatoes for their high fiber content, excellent nutrient profile, and low calorie count. Our concept translation for this trend is to offer snack packaging for potatoes that can go directly into the oven, complete with seasoning herbs and dips.

Within the "healthy substitutes" trend, we see consumers making pasta from all types of vegetables, including avocados. For the avocado category, our concept translation is to offer gnocchi-type pasta made from avocado, which can be found in the fridge area next to other vegetable-made pasta choices from squash, carrots, etc.

Consumer Co-creation: Shaping Concepts Into Valuable End Products

The next step in our process is consumer co-creation. Through this approach, we combine affluent consumers with experts (vinologists & taste panel members) in online co-creative focus groups. This collaboration helps us evaluate, shape, and prioritize the defined concepts into valuable end products.

Experience the Impact

If you like to receive a (video) presentation of our concept development activities please contact me at: [email protected] . You can also visit our website at www.fresh-insight.eu.