Baking & Snack - December 2015 - 63

R&D PERSPECTIVE
Theresa Cogswell
bakercogs@sbcglobal.net

MEETING THE 'MUST HAVES'
New product development that satisfies consumer demands takes coordinated
thinking and actions. Consider the twists and turns of a new cupcake variety.
In this fast-to-market world, the time between concept and
consumer is critical for innovation and new product development. The time it takes is a costly period for consumer
package goods companies. The shorter the time from concept to consumer, the better for the company.
Every company has a list of "must haves" when it comes
to developing a new product. The list is typically specific to
the demographic that purchases the brand you are expanding or building. The list we are going to work with includes
these five: taste, convenience, portability, reasonable price
and taste. Yes, I repeated "taste" because it's a must-have
that's important not only to product development but also
- even more so - to repeat sales.
The task at hand was a new cupcake variety. It could be a
seasonal item, an "in and out" or a permanent addition to a
line of snack-packed cupcakes.
As was my past experience working with Hostess cupcakes, we took many different ideations to the senior
management team. Possible options were quickly whittled
down to a limited number. The one the team liked best
used white cupcake batter - you know, the traditional
wedding cake style with white icing.
The topping, however, was what made this cupcake a
"wow" from the taste standpoint. It featured a random-size
crumble of chocolate sandwich cookie pieces, similar to
America's favorite cookie. It was amazing how something
so simple could be so amazingly good. So, it passed the first
and most important test. The taste was amazing!
As to convenience and portability, cupcakes of this sort
are typically a hand-held, easy-to-eat snack item, but this
cupcake had a fatal flaw. The chocolate sandwich cookie
topping was very messy. When you took a bite of the cupcake, some of the topping would always end up in your lap
or on your desk. Also, many snack items are often eaten
while traveling in a car, so creating a messy eating occasion
was a total deal breaker.
We set off to determine if there was another way to deliver the same eating experience but in a different form.

The chocolate cookie became part of the cake batter in one
version. Another mixed the cookie pieces into the icing.
At the end of the night, we learned that the chocolate
cookie inclusions, either in the cake or the icing, did not
deliver the same eating experience as having the cookie
pieces on the top of the icing. Focus group participants
described the cookie inclusions in a variety of unappealing adjectives: mushy, moist, dirty and just plain gross. But
there was still the issue of the mess created when you ate
the cupcake with the cookie crumbles on the top.
Enter marketing, asking the next question and working to determine how to give consumers what they wanted
while ensuring the cupcake would be easy to eat.
Oh, and don't forget that the new item also had to be
easy to make in the bakeries. Installing new equipment, like
a topper to add the cookie pieces after the icing applicator,
was not ideal either. We were always working to make new
products with limited-to-no capital outlay for equipment.
Then there's the sanitation challenge of the excess cookie
pieces that could get on the conveyor belt and create a huge
mess. Such conditions would likely require special scheduling and/or sanitation.
The reason this cupcake project sticks in my mind is
where we ended up vs. where we started. The final result
was a yellow cupcake with chocolate icing. It was almost a
"duh" moment when the variety and flavor were finalized.
The yellow/chocolate combination became a customer favorite, right behind the chocolate/chocolate original.
To get to the final prototype, the process of eliminating
and refining, followed by validation from the consumer
focus groups, had to take place. In the end, it seemed so
obvious. But the process had to happen to ensure we were
giving consumers what they wanted, that it met their expectations and that they would purchase it a second time.
Marketing's job is to get the first sale, R&D's is to make
sure the flavor, texture and eating experience deliver so that
the consumer will want to purchase it again. Sometimes innovation is much simpler than we give it credit for.

A new cupcake product starts
with many approaches. The
trick is to narrow it to one that
consumers will like and the
bakeries can produce.
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