The Innovation Challenge
Max and Fiona had the same goals as many of us, aiming to have no financial strains, less work and more time for themselves. They revisited their initial innovation challenge through the Pre-workshop briefing and initial sections of the workshop. It quickly became apparent that new products and added complexity weren’t the answer. They had enormous opportunities for growth by innovating within their core Taramasolata range and through channel extension while improving profitability through simplifying their business model and deleting non-performing products in their portfolio.This Innovation and business focus would be more sustainable over time and help them achieve their broader lifestyle goals.
Background
Fresh Fodder, owned by Max and Fiona Schofield, produce dips from its home in Orange, NSW. Renowned for producing Australia’s best tasting Taramasolata, ‘The Gangster Dip’, Fresh Fodder had extended its range of fresh, natural products into soups, salads and ready meals following requests from various customers to sell through independent retailers, primarily in NSW and Victoria.
Max and Fiona participated in the Eugowra, NSW Fast n Furious Innovation short course, held in June 2016 hoping to discover the next ‘big thing’ in dips but found Innovation is more than just launching new products.
Bringing their unique brand story to life and the benefits of Taramasolata would be critical to expanding usage and distribution, which would also drive consumer and customer loyalty once it became easier for them to buy.
Target Market and Consumer Problem Definition
Design-Led Innovation underpins our programme structure to start this requires us to identify the core consumer problem. Max and Fiona discovered their dips themselves weren’t the problem. They had a fantastic product & a highly loyal following, with good repeat purchase when the product was ‘available’. From the phone interviews conducted during the workshop, they found people couldn’t find their brand on-shelf, or it wasn’t available in major stores. Loyal customers had to make a compromise in a hurry when they couldn’t find Fresh Fodder!
The results highlighted that the core problems lay in packaging visibility, differentiation on shelf and distribution. People couldn’t buy it where they mainly shopped – larger supermarket chains!
The packaging problem was exacerbated by the glut of competitive products on-shelf, many of them ‘me-too’.
“You know, we’re constantly looking for opportunities to learn from other people in the industry and so things like Fast ‘n Furious tap into my creative side and Max’s need to keep looking ahead for what the next thing is.
But interestingly, what we both took out of it was more about reconciling our business to some degree and taking some of the chaos out of it that, in all fairness, we were contributing to on a fairly high level” Fiona Schofield
