How the Co-Development Approach Is Built for Your Success
In today’s ever-changing business environment, it is more important than ever for companies to collaborate and co-develop with other organizations to drive innovation, create new products and stay ahead of the competition. AAK, a global provider of value-adding specialty vegetable fats and oils, continues to innovate with our customers through the Co-Development process.
What Co-Development Means to Us
Co-Development is a collaborative process where AAK works together with our partners to create a new product that would be difficult to achieve alone. During this process, we share expertise, knowledge and resources to achieve a common goal: better collaboration to co-develop better solutions. We can leverage each other’s strengths to create better products, reduce costs and accelerate speed-to-market.
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Successful Co-Development starts with a few key factors:
The Power of Collaboration
AAK has a long history of Co-Development, and we attribute our success to our ability to work closely with customers, suppliers and other stakeholders, developing functional, customer-preferred and innovative solutions. With over 150 years of experience, we’ve created a global network of technical experts who work with customers to understand their needs and develop custom solutions that meet their unique requirements. AAK’s technical expertise, combined with our extensive knowledge of vegetable fats and oils, delivers a higher success rate for the projects we do together with our customers.
A Success Story
One example of AAK’s Co-Development success is our collaboration with a customer to develop a plant-based burger with the same visual appeal and texture as a traditional meat burger. As the Flexitarianism trend grew in popularity, it was important that we delivered a plant-based alternative without compromising on sensory attributes such as texture, aroma, mouthfeel and visual appeal.
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The customer’s challenge: Creating a visually appealing juicy plant-based burger.
What we did: By introducing particulates of fat throughout the plant-based burger, we were able to mirror the appearance of real meat. We also utilized two innovation centers in Louisville, Kentucky and Richmond, California to test and analyze solutions in a setting that mimics real-life conditions.
Additional support: Working together with the customer’s local operations team, we ensured a smooth transition from pilot to full-scale manufacturing. ?
Final result: A better plant-based burger, designed to give customers a better culinary experience with all the desirable and great-tasting sensory attributes.?
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Discover more of AAK’s plant-based success stories here.
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Better Innovation & Beyond
Co-Development is a critical component of Making Better Happen?, and AAK has embraced this unique approach, using it to drive innovation and growth. By working closely with customers, suppliers and other stakeholders, AAK has been able to develop custom solutions that meet the unique requirements of our partners—whether that’s sustainability credentials, better functionality, taste or process efficiency.
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We’re always striving for the next step. Join us on the journey to better collaboration and let’s chat about how AAK can support you in your future innovations.