Concept Screening
You are now ready to test your product concept with people that you know, if you are in a restaurant, it could be other team members and senior staff, if you are looking at a retail food product, it could be on family and friends.
Just remember that they will be kind to you and feedback may be limited. They may prefer to not give you any negative feedback. Therefore, a formal testing panel is part of the process once your concept has been developed.
So why do we get feedback at this stage?
- To get feedback on the concept.
- Ask people to give feedback on the flavour and visual appeal of the product.
- See how people react to the packaging / presentation of the product.
- Identify any adjustments that can be made prior to the next stage: Developing a protype for testing.
Here are some questions to solicit feedback, notice how they are open questions and require a more detailed answer:
- Describe the taste, how could we enhance the flavour?
- How could we improve the labelling and packaging to make it more user friendly?
- How often do you think that you would order this dish?
- What adjustments could we make to X to make it more flavoursome?
- What part of the product do you like and what could be improved?
- What would you be prepared to pay for X product?
Examples of feedback that has been given on products that have been developed include:
- It has a wonderful flavour, but the sauce overpowers the dish.
- It would be great to be able to heat up the dish in the microwave, but you must remove it from the disposable foil dish to heat up.
- Love the product but my family couldn’t afford it.
- Its great but have you tasted the one that they serve at X.
Feedback allows you to enhance your product and whether your product stands up to scrutiny from people that you know.
Activity: Formulate a questionnaire and select about 4 people that you know and test your concept, this should include taste testing and product screening (packaging, brand, labelling etc). We will discuss branding, packaging, and labelling in detail later in the course.
Discussion
Did your food product pass the concept screening stage? If not, what were the reasons?
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