The Innovation Paradox

If you introduce too many new products, you can alienate existing customers, but if you don't innovate enough, you risk losing them for being boring.

The task for the marketers and food innovation specialists is a tough one.

Over the years, one of the most innovative brands started to fall short when it came to new products - Pret was focusing on tweaking the quality of ingredients rather than keeping pace with more radical new dishes that Street Food and Contemporary Fast Food operators were introducing to consumers. However, Pret changed this perception by introducing the Hot cabinets to their stores and bringing us hot wraps, omelettes, and mac n'cheese, as well as introducing protein pots and new salads, whilst also tweaking ingredients and recipes.

Their recent big launch of new products has been perhaps a bit overblown, and in retrospect could have been introduced more subtly, as they haven't really brought anything radical to the table. 

Making a song and dance about introducing smashed avo on bread shows that whilst this was undoubtedly a big innovation for them, it's a bit behind the times, when the world has already moved on.

Checking out the new products two days after launch, I see some new recipes for sandwiches and baguettes, new salads, new protein pots and breakfast pots, along with many veggie versions , but the only radically new dishes were the three open sandwiches, one of which I'll return to.

Launching new products into an estate of >500 stores is a very difficult process, even in a well-oiled machine like Pret, so innovation has to be carefully managed; if you stray too far from the well-trodden path, production can struggle and fall behind causing reduction in availability and then sales. New packaging, new ingredients into the supply chain, and despite lots of training, anything can go very wrong.

So, should Pret be shouting about this as their biggest launch ever? It may well be, and there will have been an inordinate amount of work put into it by all the team, but from a consumer perspective I didn't see anything radical, and the one range that was different (the open bread sandwiches) were behind the times.

But this brings me back to the whole idea of innovation and potentially alienating customers, if Pret did anything completely radical and changed the range dramatically then regular customers would feel aggrieved (I know, as I am surely one of their most regular and loyal!); the one product that stood out as different was the coconut yoghurt and berries open bread sandwich, which was weird! I've never tried yoghurt on bread, and to be honest, I don't want to want to again, however I'm sure there will be some people who will say they like it. But, is it a risk worth taking?

The innovation paradox - go too far, too radical and risk being odd and alienating customers, or don't do enough and be boring! 

P.S. no innovation can be as bad as a sandwich recipe which Julian Metcalfe insisted on on Pret, back in the 90's, when I was Senior Operations Manager for the business - Foie Gras and Peaches!

Imagine that in Pret, sitting next to our 'Free Range' Egg & Cress..........

It only lasted a week before being pulled!