The Food Mirror project will be offering the food industry keys for anticipating consumer demands
Azti-Tecnalia has presented the aims of its “Food Mirror” project for 2014; the initiative seeks to set up and consolidate the first international community of observers in the foodstuff area. The R&D centre, which specialises in marine and foodstuff research, is planning to specify a selection of new food trends for next year; they are expected to detail consumer preferences for the near future. A further aim is to develop a range of new services focussing on a consumer study that will allow foodstuff companies to quickly and effectively anticipate consumer demands. Knowing consumption trends is fundamental if Azti-Tecnalia is to offer the foodstuff industry solutions and proposals. The Food Mirror initiative is part of the market and consumer research strategy begun in 2010 by the Observatory of Trends and Innovation of Azti-Tecnalia’s Foodstuff Research Unit. Within this project the international community of observers is a key element in the creation of future foodstuffs in conjunction with the foodstuffs industry and Azti-Tecnalia. The online component will be crucial in the development of The Food Mirror, where there will be a space for interaction between the food industry and consumers, observers and researchers. To facilitate the work to spot food trends, at the beginning of 2014 Azti-Tecnalia will be launching a mobile phone app for smartphones and tablets that will aim to expand the community of observers and facilitate the visualisation and transmission of their discoveries. Azti-Tecnalia currently has over 500 observers registered in its database, all of them participants in The Food Mirror Game competition begun early this year with the purpose of starting to build the first international community of observers of food trends. These people provided over 350 images and videos from all over the world. Azti-Tecnalia is approaching The Food Mirror from a business and social perspective. On the one hand, its aim is to detect advance business opportunities, market niches and help to internationalise the foodstuff industry. On the other, a social aim is established, since the R&D centre will be participating alongside consumers in the development and promotion of food R&D&i. The main lines of work of The Food Mirror are consumer study and consumption trends. Trends are linked to the natural evolution that takes place in consumer needs, motivations and preferences, and influence their behaviour when it comes to consuming. This is why it is so important to identify and study them. Trends also encourage the detection and characterisation of new groups of consumers and provide inspiration for the design of new products or the re-invention of existing ones. Given the strategic importance of market research of this type, Azti-Tecnalia began to work three years ago on methodologies like coolhunting to identify and study trends that have an impact on the foodstuff ambit, which led to what the centre has called EATendencias (EATrends). The Food Mirror will allow this line of research to be consolidated, since the observations received during the competition are added to the work being developed by Azti-Tecnalia’s Observatory of Trends and Innovation. The Food Mirror will likewise be useful in analysing the evolution in EATendencias identified in advance, and in discovering new trends in addition to the innovations associated with them.
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Spain