How F&B multinationals foster innovation by being open to change

From academic research and private investment, to startup entrepreneurship, open innovation drives the search for the foods of tomorrow. But how do multinationals balance research and innovation activities with their day to day business?

Dr Kavita Karnik is Vice President of Global Nutrition and Open Innovation at Tate & Lyle. She provides leadership in the Innovation and Commercial Development unit on nutrition science and is involved in new product development. She leads a strategic nutrition science research and education program which ensures scientific support for new and existing products and is also responsible for exploring strategically relevant open innovation opportunities in Europe for Tate & Lyle.

Dr Kavita Karnik, Vice President of Global Nutrition and Open Innovation at Tate & Lyle

“Innovation for us is a broad term! From the ‘renovation’ of an existing product

portfolio (by introducing small but useful changes) to the introduction of ‘disruptive

technologies’ anywhere in the life cycle of our ingredients (from new product

development to production processes to logistics), we innovate daily.” 4

An academic perspective The company looks for innovations both amongst startups as well as academia.

“We have research collaborations with a wide range of universities and organisations, which help us not only leverage their expertise for specific projects, but also develop relationships built on mutual trust which becomes instrumental in learning about the latest developments in the academic world.“ 4

“To give an example of such cooperation, Tate & Lyle acquired exclusive rights to manufacture and commercialise a new sodium reduction technology from Eminate, a subsidiary of The University of Nottingham in the UK. The ingredient, SodaLo, has won awards for innovative ingredient.” 4

Picking up the pace Working in an open innovation environment can be tricky – even for the larger multinational companies such as Tate & Lyle:

“Open innovation is a very dynamic and fast-moving world! Sometimes it can be challenging for a big company like ours to make decisions fast enough to keep us with the pace.” 4

“We are in an exciting and fast-paced phase in the F&B industry. The explosion of consumer interest in clean label and functional ingredients is driving innovation. An increased awareness of sustainability issues leads to an increase in flexitarian diets, an emphasis on plant-based diets as well as packaging innovation. We hope that this environment will open exciting opportunities of collaboration between F&B multinationals and smaller startups.” 4

Manuela Borella is Vice President of Danone’s Innovation Incubator. Her passion for harvesting diverse talent to unlock team potential, in addition to a rich corporate network, enabled her to lead one of the first successful multinational incubators. She has a deep wealth of operational experience in corporate strategy, brand building, P&L management and marketing.

Developing innovation requires speed and agility, two elements that can be hard to muster for large multinationals. With its Manifesto Innovation Accelerator, Danone has internalised innovation by supporting startups from within. This allows the group to benefit from the assets brought by small startup processes who, in turn, can unlock the capabilities of a large multinational like Danone.

Manuela Borella, Vice President of Danone’s Innovation Incubator

An entrepreneurial tribe According to Manuela Borella, VP at Danone’s Innovation Accelerator, Danone’s M.I.A. innovation lab supports “a tribe of internal entrepreneurs to accelerate new business models.” Startups have certainly inspired the way they launch their ideas “in a test and learn mindset,” she said.

“We want to capture additional profitable growth opportunities through the incubation of disruptive ideas and business models, looking across and beyond current product categories. We are building startups inside the company, rather than using M&A to unlock growth, and unleashing our people’s potential and talent by giving freedom to pursue personal intuitions from idea to market." 5

Manuela Borella, Vice President of Danone’s Innovation Incubator

“I like to make a distinction between ‘sustainable

innovation’, which aims at creating novelty

and improvement within a company's established

categories and business model, and ‘radical innovation’,

which brings disruption and builds value by changing the defined business model

and taking the company into exploring new human needs. At the MIA we are

focused on the latter and are obsessed by a human-centric approach. This leads

us into the understanding of humans to uncover new needs and explore how our

brands, existing or new ones, can serve those needs to enhance users’ lives.” 5

Reaping the rewards

According to Borella, Danone found that by cultivating the disruptive ideas and models startups have

to offer, the rewards would be two-fold. On the one hand, it offers an opportunity for development

by unlocking “growth, and unleashing our people’s potential and talent by giving freedom to pursue

personal intuitions from idea to market;" and on the other, an opportunity to change the way a large

multi-national company like themselves operate by “providing concrete examples of how agile startup

mindsets and tools can be applied and leveraged.” 5

Achieving a state of synergy between the two ways of working does pose its challenges, however, and as Borella noted:

“While we would love to just throw out the rule book, that is not realistic if we want to make sure that these new ways of working can be integrated into the company. We push boundaries when we need to, but we must learn to choose our battles and focus our energy.” 5

She also highlighted the importance of, when it comes to taking decisions, collaborating with the business and providing factual and legitimate information in order to ensure full transparency of any potential risks. In doing so, Borella notes that it lends greater credibility to their methods by providing concrete examples that demonstrates what they want to achieve.

This internal startup incubator seems to have had a positive impact on the company and Borella is very pleased with the results thus far.

“The most important thing is: I have gathered a very talented, fun and unconventional team. We have identified 18 ideas serving Danone’s One Planet One Health model and accelerated 7 internal startups. We are just as proud of the 2 we have binned, the 2 that are in city-launch & the 3 that will be on the market soon. There have been 1952 qualitative consumer interactions and 8956 MVP’s in consumers’ bellies. We’ve been spreading new ways of working internally: more than 1000 Danoners have joined our internal communications channel, and we’ve been invited to share our story at over 30 large events.” 5