Plan ahead or yule be sorry
It seems Christmas comes earlier every year. Advertisements go up in the summer and as soon as the dark nights start drawing in, the puddings and cakes are on supermarket shelves.
For a good number of food manufacturers, the festive period usually begins in January, or as soon as all the facts and figures have been collated from the festive sales - that's when the fun begins! Product concepts are drawn up and recipe's developed. Or in the majority of cases, re-developed, as traditional recipes are brought up-to-date to ensure they are 'on trend'!
However, in the majority of cases it's not about understanding consumer trends, it's about understanding good food, respecting the ingredients you use and being able to make the damn thing! Then you have to consider how the product is stored and make sure that it is consumed in its prime. It's about understanding the rules and knowing how far you can bend them.
Many food companies fall into one of two traps: they either make too many changes to their products; or don't change anything at all.
Requests to change the product's packaging, ingredients and shelf-life are usually the norm and one of the main issues is the latter. If you have a six month shelf-life on your product, it will take six months just to evaluate one recipe change, so hitting deadline can be a real challenge.
During the Christmas sales period, the product reviews in nearly every magazine and newspaper start to circulate. This can be a worrying time, especially if your product doesn't come out on top.
I know at least one company who develops for Christmas nearly five years in advance and it's safe to say that it is a market leader. Invest and develop ahead of the curve and the reviews will sell your food. As the old saying goes: the proof's in the (Christmas) pudding!
Mark Rigby is director of the Development Chefs' Network (DCN) and business development chef for Premier Foods
