The KICR blog

Friday, December 2

How To Avoid the Success Trap

What is the success trap? And what innovation processes can be put in place to keep it at bay? Read to

Friday, October 21

Cost of Living Crisis – Innovative Solutions to the Value Equation

The cost of living crisis & the accompanying narrative & commentary is everywhere at the moment. However, being at the coalface

Friday, October 7

Why innovation can address the cost-of-living crisis

Dare I wheel out the line? Sorry, not sorry but there’s no other way to say it! We are genuinely in

Friday, September 30

Little Book of Innovation – Chapter 6 – Ensuring Customer Insight Is At The Heart Of Your Innovation

Thursday, September 22

Opportunity or Responsibility?

  WHO states that one in three 11-year olds in the European region are overweight or obese. Food Navigator UK goes

Wednesday, August 31

Awesome Award

  Wow! We’re literally bursting with excitement, guess what’s happened! We’ve only gone & been awarded the: SME News, British Made

Friday, July 29

I wish I knew then what I know now!

After over 15 years in FMCG working on both retailer and client/manufacturer side I recently took the plunge to the dark

Friday, July 1

F!S Group wholly acquires KICR Innovation

Thursday, January 27

Can Functional Beer Bolster No & Low Alcohol?

Thursday, November 25

Innovation: Why it’s time to go extreme

Thursday, November 4

Riding The New Wave of Soft Drink Innovation

Friday, October 29

Let’s Get Functional: The magic of mushrooms

Sunday, October 3

HFSS. Let’s Own This!

HFSS legislation is hurtling towards us, and we must work together to defend against loss. But there are opportunities for brands

Wednesday, September 8

BETTER FOR YOU – Why & how is this category still growing?

When comparing various food and beverage products, better-for-you products are quite literally those that are better for your health.

Friday, September 3

Long live agile driven innovation

It is how you achieve competitive advantage and remain relevant in the face of dynamic consumer needs.

Tuesday, August 31

Commercial innovation opportunities for brands in DTC

With its roots embedded within the Covid-19 pandemic, the mantle of shifting to DTC has been taken up by F&B businesses.

Tuesday, August 24

How the snacking category has evolved and matured during the pandemic

On The Go snacking products are made to be convenient and functional for those living a busy lifestyle.

Tuesday, August 17

Have you heard about plant-based fish and seafood alternatives?

The popularity and consumer numbers of this category continues to grow.

Thursday, August 12

The NO/LOW trend – What is the appeal?

Brands & manufacturers have an important role to play in the future of no and low beverages.

Friday, July 30

Why the stealth trend is creating opportunities for disruptive new product innovations

What is ‘Stealth Health’ you may be thinking? Stealth Health is not as scary as it sounds.

Wednesday, July 28

Chickpea, Soya, Hibiscus…Why are these ingredients so popular within the Food & Beverage market?

With the shift in buying behaviour, global companies have seen huge growth in the plant-based ingredients category.

Monday, July 26

KICR SUMMER TRENDS REPORT – What’s trending in the beverage categories?

5 insightful beverage trends to empower your product design thinking this Summer

Thursday, July 22

The Seltzer Surge! Why is this category so popular?

The seltzer market is expected to grow at a rate of 16.2% from now until 2027.

Wednesday, July 21

KICR SUMMER TRENDS REPORT – What’s trending in the food categories?

This Summer KICR has identified 5 insightful food trends to empower your concept and product design thinking.

Tuesday, July 13

Baked Confectionery Post Pandemic Trends

It is anticipated that the market will start to recover throughout 2021.

Monday, June 28

Mainstreaming of Sustainable Food – Why Innovation Matters

Sustainability has been a trend within FMCG for a number of years, and its relevance to consumers has only been growing.

Friday, June 25

Who are KICR Innovation?

KICR Innovation is a global food & beverage NPD innovation consultancy. We deliver breakthrough innovation projects to global brands, worldwide.

Tuesday, June 22

What are the benefits of outsourcing front end NPD and innovation?

The key is selecting the right partners – those that can challenge and stretch your thinking.

Friday, June 18

Re’imagining Pet Care Nutrition & Treating

The pet food product innovation landscape is changing rapidly.

Friday, June 11

Functional ingredients – food & drink as medicine

Food as medicine? This is becoming a priority for consumers.

Tuesday, June 1

The functional beverages

A major change in the beverage industry has been the movement towards functional beverages as consumers strive to improve health.

Tuesday, May 18

The Gluten Free Category – What’s the hype about?

There has been an accelerated growth trend appearing in the gluten-free category. But why is this?

Thursday, May 13

Does Nutri-Score improve purchase intentions?

Studies have proven that when the labelling is present the consumer expresses a higher purchase intention over a less healthy product.

Tuesday, May 11

How to achieve breakthrough innovation within the ‘healthy meal & well-being’ demand space

The nutritional quality of prepared dishes is often questioned by consumers.

Monday, May 3

Snacking

CCO, Libby Mayo, talks about healthy snacking as a key trend for 2021 and how it could offer as an interesting

Thursday, April 29

What’s evolving within the non alcoholic beverages category?

Beverage brands are seeking to innovate to find more natural alternatives, which also reflect new consumer tastes.

Sunday, April 25

Why is the plant-based food category so popular?

The plant-based sector is one of the fastest-growing within the food industry.

Thursday, April 22

Breakthrough innovation – Savoury Snacking

From Crisps, tortilla chips, popcorn to snacking nuts, the savoury snacks category has been disrupted by Covid-19.

Tuesday, April 20

Unlocking the plant-based category – New product adjacencies

2020 appears to have accelerated already known trends. One of the most recognised surging trends is in plant-based powered foods.

Monday, April 19

How can CPGs achieve breakthrough innovation?

To achieve and sustain cut through in ever competitive category spaces, we must: Renovate, Reset and Accelerate.

Wednesday, April 14

NPD excellence – Balancing nutrition with customer experiences

Nutrition has always been important but trends are showing that more consumers want to adopt a healthier more balanced approach to

Wednesday, April 14

Innovation Clinics

Free 30-minute consultancy sessions for any FMCG business looking to gain external consumer and innovation insights, fresh perspective and NPD consultancy.

Tuesday, April 13

Breakthrough innovation – Children Beverages

The pandemic has definitely disrupted all diets and our lifestyles. Children’s diets have been affected too.

Friday, April 9

The growing Free-From category – what is the appeal?

Why many Food & Beverage brands are catching onto the Free-From movement?

Friday, April 9

The Importance of Innovation

Why is NPD innovation so important to FMCG brands right now?

Tuesday, April 6

NEWS ALERT CUBO INNOVATION IS NOW KICR INNOVATION

CUBO Innovation has grown. We are now KICR Innovation!

Friday, February 5

Why Co-Create with Consumers?

At KICR we believe consumer engagement is at the heart of effective innovation and that consumers should be partners in creativtiy,

Friday, January 8

A Year of Trends: 2021

2021 is the year for innovation – CCO, Libby Mayo, explains how to re-vitalise your Food & Beverage Category NPD approach

Monday, December 14

NPD and Innovation News

Your Quarterly update on the F&B NPD and Innovation Sector.

Friday, December 4

Innovating with External Innovation Partners

In-house insights, innovation and consumer science teams are looking beyond their internal NPD capabilities and current manufacturing competences to achieve breakthrough

Monday, November 23

The 7 Deadly Sins of Innovation

Over the many combined years our team has been in this business, we have seen and heard it all (well almost,

Friday, November 20

How DTC is Informing Brand Line Extension

As brands increasingly connect with their consumer, they are able to make better informed developments to their existing lines, evolving with

Monday, November 16

How Innovative Packaging Can Boost Your Consumer Engagement

In a world where the average person receives 121 emails a-day, is exposed to almost 5,000 daily advertising messages and instant

Monday, November 9

Sustaining demand and shelf attention as we exist in the new normal

The global crisis has fueled significant, disruptive changes in consumer buying decisions. Brands, innovation and marketing leads are evaluating their commercial

Monday, October 26

Direct to Consumer Strategy – Why is now the time to pivot and innovate?

We are seeing a revolutionary new era develop for manufacturers, consumer packaged goods (CPG) and other categories being forced to take

Saturday, October 3

Top 5 Tips: How to Win with a Long-Term Community in the FMCG sector

What is a consumer community and why use one?

Saturday, September 26

Embracing Change – Opportunity not Black Hole

We all of course react differently to change, some embrace it and love the feeling of the unexpected, others feel so

Saturday, September 19

Using Personal Experiences in NPD

Managing Director of KICR, Susannah Croucher reminds us that as consumers ourselves, by keeping the environments of our work and personal

Wednesday, September 16

5 Benefits of Outsourcing: Part II

Where speed to market is a key profit driver for innovation, considered outsourcing can make a significant and positive impact.

Saturday, September 12

5 Benefits of Outsourcing: Part I

When looking to select an innovation partner, we’d recommend these 5 core considerations.

Monday, September 7

Huge Gains in Agility are Possible with a Fresh Approach

There are increasing demands for more ‘agile’ innovation, to achieve competitive advantage and remain relevant in the face of dynamic consumer

Wednesday, September 2

Firing Up Creativity with Culinary Inspiration

The creative input and fresh perspective that development chefs can provide can be a gamechanger.

Monday, August 3

Making Innovation Work

In some ways, implementing innovation into a business is like eating something the size of an elephant – seemingly impossible at

Monday, July 20

Start-Ups We Admire

Having previously shared top tips from start-ups, in this blog post we reveal some of the new brands and products that

Friday, July 3

Learning From Startups

Coming up with new ideas can be the easy bit... what's often more difficult, is creating a space (physical and mental)

Monday, February 17

Cook up a storm – 3 key ingredient trends for successful innovation

There are many brilliant sources for understanding ingredients trends. We particularly like the way the Food People use an extensive network