Mashups, Crossovers and Flavor Fusions: Getting Novel in the Food and Beverage Industry

While some food and beverage brands are trying to simplify their products by eliminating unnecessary ingredients and focusing on authenticity, others are taking a different approach and getting creative. For these businesses, mashups, crossovers and unexpected flavor profiles are all the rage, and novelty is the name of the game.

Whether it’s an imaginative way for popular items to combine, a timeless favorite dipping into a different segment or a wild new variety of a beloved classic, these offerings create excitement, drive word-of-mouth marketing and entice shoppers with the promise of a unique experience. They also represent excellent opportunities to boost sales as the hype compels consumers to try the latest releases while they can.

That being said, not all verticals allow for this kind of experimentation, and success can be fleeting if the goods released don’t live up to their billing. Here, we’ll take a look at some of the most noteworthy product mashups, sector crossovers and flavor innovations and explain how your company can get in on the action.

Branded Mashups

When two well-known names join forces and co-brand a new product, both stand to benefit from additional attention from their counterpart’s core audience. While the end result will fall under one segment or the other, the aim is to harness the strengths of both original items and tempt consumers with compelling “what if?” scenarios.

Here are some instances of the practice at work:

• Nestle Coffeemate Snickers Creamer, which adds chocolate, peanut and caramel tones to your morning brew

• Fanta Orange Snack Pack pudding cups that bring together a citrus soda with gelatin snacks

• Starburst Yoplait yogurts, where a creamy dairy standby and fruit chews meet for a unique spin

• Frosted Maple Flavor Eggo Pop-Tarts that merge two on-the-go breakfasts in one

Some brand synergies are stronger than others, but when creative minds in research and development have the opportunity to take inspiration from another line and bring two known quantities into a single package, there’s great potential to capture the shopping public’s imagination.

Sector Crossovers

By leveraging the name recognition and lasting demand for a regular in their product lineup, a food and beverage business can dip its metaphorical toe into different sectors with crossovers. Typically, these offerings are designed to recreate the taste of a long-time favorite in a completely new format.

Good examples include:

• Wendy’s Frosty cereal, which reimagines the fast food giant’s treat as part of a balanced breakfast

• Little Debbie’s line of ice creams designed to mimic the tastes of their classic snack cakes

• Jolly Rancher cereal, another breakfast item—this time inspired by fruity hard candies

With this approach, most brands choose to position the new offering in an adjacent vertical—for example, a snack product being adapted to the frozen novelty space. The further the leap taken, the more difficult it becomes to establish the appeal of the new item.

Flavor Fusions

Similar to the branded mashups discussed previously, new varieties and fusions of existing tastes can inject excitement into an otherwise stagnant market with never-before-seen creations. Here, a business might choose to mix two related flavors or go for the novel “oddball” strategy with their release.

• Sauces Mixed by Heinz, which combine two condiments in one bottle

• Gingerbread Snap’d Mountain Dew, a seasonal variety that had holiday shoppers doing a double-take

• Reese’s Potato Chips Big Cup, billed as the perfect balance of sweet and salty

• Ultimate Chocolate and Toffee Crunch Flavor Crème Oreos, just the latest in the sandwich cookie’s 90+ different variants

Clearly, the product designers behind these items and others like them have to know their market demographics well to understand what might find success and what’s just too “out there” to warrant a purchase on the shoppers’ part.

Empowering Your R&D Team with the Right Technology

Seeing what space has been explored and imagining where your business could take these ideas may be an intriguing proposition. Before you let your product development teams start to tinker and iterate with ideas, though, you need to make sure they have the tools they need.

Industry-specific enterprise resource planning (ERP) software with dedicated recipe and formula management functionalities is a prerequisite for any company looking to launch new offerings, as it takes precision in measurements and a fully configurable backend platform to nail the process. These systems do much more, though—including allergen management in the case that your new ingredients and suppliers come with those concerns—and are truly all-in-one solutions for food and beverage organizations.

Our own industry-specific food and beverage solution, Aptean Food & Beverage ERP, was designed by seasoned technology professionals with in-depth understanding of the challenges that companies like yours face, so we’ve packed it with features that help enforce best practices in all areas of operations. It’s also fully scalable, and we offer flexible, lightweight cloud deployments for lower up-front costs and greater mobile accessibility.

With a proven track record of more than 1,000 implementations to date, Aptean is a partner you can trust in your explorations of exciting new territory and ongoing digital transformation. Our teams are here to answer any questions you might have as you evaluate your options and determine your goals.

Ready to hear more about Aptean Food & Beverage ERP and how it can help you capitalize on the mashup, crossover and exotic variety crazes? Contact us today.