KRAFT FOODS BEGINS RESEARCH TO PREVENT DAIRY MILK MELTING
Kraft Foods’ hope to make melted chocolate mess a thing of the past with its newest research project.
The new owners of Cadbury are hunting for high-tech film packaging that will keep chocolate solid at temperatures of up to forty.
The research into this new packaging hopes to reduce the risk of melted chocolate in warm temperatures, increasing the purchase of the chocolate bar during the summer months.
A tender document has been published on Kraft’s behalf by US consultancy NineSigma inviting an array of packaging companies to submit their plans within the next nine months.
The document states that:
“Kraft seeks novel materials or approaches to packaging that can protect single-serve chocolate bars from medium-term exposure to warm ambient conditions.
These products frequently experience multiple cycles of exposure to controlled and uncontrolled climates. Product may be shipped in controlled and uncontrolled conditions, sold by the retailer in an air-conditioned setting and consumed sometime later after having been carried on the person or in a handbag.”
The document also outlines that most of the existing temperature-resistant technology is “cost-prohibitive and excessively bulky”, hoping to find something that both reduces the risk of melting and prevents the need to increase product price as a result.
The research is a direct example of Kraft’s Open Innovation, an imperative for creating and profiting from technology.
By concentrating their research on packaging that is related to user innovation Kraft understands that Open Innovation allows them to progress using innovative technology.
Open Innovation allows the boundaries between a firm and its environment to become more permeable and the new packaging that hopes to prevent high temperatures from melting the Dairy Milk chocolate is a perfect example of Kraft foods utilizing the research of outside co-operations in order to benefit their products.
Maybe Kraft should should attend the Food and Drink Innovation Network’s upcoming Open Innovation seminar and find out more ways in which Open Innovation could contribute to the success of their brand.
For more information on the up coming Open Innovation seminar click here.
