Focus areas
Food choice behaviour, as described by scientists, is highly active and dynamic behaviour. The time of day and the situation in which the food is consumed are major influences on actual consumer behaviour. The food industry considers product development on demand the answer to what is frequently characterised as fickle consumer behaviour. A recently discovered fact is also that the typical consumer (if he or she exists at all) cannot be placed in previously determined categories. As a consequence, product development suffers from high failure costs as food choice behaviour becomes increasingly more difficult to predict. Research into consumer segmentation and consumer choice will therefore become ever more important in the development of new research methods and techniques.
Costs of product development and market launching are enormous. Due to a new phenomenon known as mass individualisation, there is a growing demand for all sorts of innovative product concepts that are to serve highly specific target groups (such as the elderly, teens and young children). At the same time, failure percentage of market launchings is relatively high. The majority of new products will disappear from the market within a year of their introduction. Businesses are looking for new methods and institutional arrangements in order to more effectively predict new product acceptance, and to keep product development costs to a minimum. Other sales channels than the super market channel, such as company catering and healthcare industry catering are receiving a great deal of attention.
In an increasingly complex society businesses find it harder to launch product innovation and/or entirely new products. The Restaurant of the Future offers the ultimate opportunity for both larger and smaller companies to take a validated step towards the market. Approach which until now has been tentative and uncertain