Owners of food manufacturing and food services can use design thinking to help expand their operations, develop off-shoot businesses or even invent yet-unknown flavours that tantalise the taste bud.
The Design Thinking & Innovation Academy (DTIA) and Enivrance, an innovation design consultancy specialising in food and beverages, organised and facilitated several design thinking workshops for F&B managers last year.
Participants were introduced to the value of food design process that relates to their business objectives. Using design thinking, they were guided through a hands-on project specific to their business from understanding their company’s mission to utilising the building blocks necessary to achieve the target outcomes.
The workshop forced us to think beyond branding and to re-look our product offerings as an entire system, from the product to the packaging and to communicating with our customers.
The concepts generated were turned into rough-and-ready prototypes, then submitted for a simulated consumer test. The concepts were then evaluated together with the company and a strategy for implementation was proposed, incorporating the product’s unique selling point and weaving in a compelling story.
“I enjoyed the pace and thought process of the design thinking workshop. It allowed for innovative and creative sharing amongst the companies,” said participant Ms Janice Wong, chef and owner of 2am:lab.
“The workshop forced us to think beyond branding and to re-look our product offerings as an entire system, from the product to the packaging and to communicating with our customers,” said Ms Claire Chng, regional business development manager of Sin Hwa Dee.
