Innovating together

Innovation is not without risks. You never know for sure whether you will ultimately recoup the hard-earned cash you invest; failure is always a possibility. In fact, the likelihood of failure is considerably greater than the chance of your innovation succeeding. And yet it’s essential to innovate, to reinvent and hence to stay ahead of the competition.

'If you don’t share, you won’t grow'

But it seems that this gem of wisdom doesn’t apply to every link in the chain. Dutch food retailer Jumbo has recently launched the second edition of a competition called Huismerk Lab (‘Private Label Lab’) in which it invites suppliers to develop new products. The five best products will be sold through its stores under Jumbo’s own brand.

To be honest, I feel that Jumbo should be ashamed of itself: a major retailer, who within the broader chain set-up isn’t the link with the lowest margins, asking its suppliers to send in their innovations so that it can stick a Jumbo logo on them and sell them on.

Isn’t it time that retailers themselves started investing in innovation and hence also shouldered some of the risk? Since they are the ones who ultimately decide what makes it onto supermarket shelves, a little commitment from their side wouldn’t go amiss in terms of the innovative products’ chances of success either. After all, it’s much easier to decide to delist an innovation when you haven’t invested in it yourself.

So this is my plea to retailers and their suppliers. If you don’t share, you won’t grow. Joint investment in innovations will improve the alignment between supply and demand, which will ensure that more innovative products reach supermarket shelves, and that will ultimately result in more new and truly distinctive products for consumers. When shall we start?

Dennis Favier is professional Food Designer and Creative Director at innovation company TOP BV. The company translates technological innovations into interesting applications.