Do your ingredients work for your product?
Your ingredient choice will ultimately impact flavour, texture, nutritional value and product cost. Even the size of your target market could be affected if the ingredients conflict with dietary preferences, such as those shaped by allergies or religious beliefs.
While you may want to include new and exciting ingredients, it’s important to make sure they actually work within your product. We can help identify the best ingredients to meet your goals, using flavour characterisation, ingredient analysis and physical and structural characterisation where relevant.
How does your product taste?
Taste and texture are far and away the most important factors when it comes to new product development. If consumer expectations are not met – from purchase date right through to end of shelf life – they are unlikely to buy your product again.
Sensory analysis and understanding consumer acceptability throughout shelf life are key. And it doesn’t have to slow down the NPD process. Our team can stress test your products under specified storage conditions to provide sensory and analytical information over an accelerated time frame so you can identify changes in product quality and expected shelf life more quickly.
Can your packaging be both functional and innovative?
The basic role of packaging is to protect the product inside. It needs to safeguard product quality during transit and support your defined shelf life. Yet, packaging must also be attractive and informative.
Consumers are looking for new and innovative packaging and, inspired by growing environmental concern, many now have a special interest in sustainability. Familiar packaging with a sustainable edge can help bridge the gap between traditional packaging formats. Replacing glass bottles with lightweight plastic bottles, for instance, results in lower carbon emissions - but ensuring they are reusable, recyclable or compositable is key. Elsewhere, many manufacturers have removed the plastic film from products, opting instead for a picture of the product on the packaging which consumers can easily recycle.
When selecting packaging materials, it’s important to assess their physical characteristics to ensure they provide the right strength and barrier proprieties for your product. The last thing you want is for strong odours to permeate the pack and impact products, or for the shelf life to be drastically reduced and damage product quality. Our team can fully evaluate different packaging materials and help you find the best option for your product.
Is your label correct and compliant?
Product labelling is incredibly important as it’s the first thing consumers are drawn towards. Holding vital information such as claims, ingredients, allergen risks and, of course, your brand and product name, getting it right is vital. You need to be sure your label is factually correct and legally compliant. RSSL’s analytical team can substantiate on-pack claims, giving you piece of mind that the information can be trusted regardless of shelf life, processing and packaging.