"Most people see the snack market as dynamic and inno- vative, but actually it is surprisingly conservative. Most of what passes for innovation is in fact tinkering with our marketing approach, things like special offers, promotion tie-ins and so on. We occasionally put new packs round our existing products and even more occasionally we introduce new flavours in existing ranges. Rarely though does anyone in this industry introduce something radically different. That is why ‘Project Orlando’ is both exciting and scary.’
Monica Allen, the technical vice-president of PJT’s snack division, was commenting on a new product to be mar- keted under PJT’s best-known brand ‘Dreddo Dan’s Surfer Snacks’. The Dreddo Dan’s brand made use of surfing and outdoor ‘action-oriented youth’ imagery, but in fact was aimed at a slightly older generation who, although aspiring to such a life style, had more discretionary spend for the premium snacks in which the brand specialised. Current products marketed under the brand included both fried and baked snacks in a range of exotic flavours. The pro- ject, internally known as Project Orlando, was a baked product that had been ‘in development’ for almost three years but had hitherto been seen very much as a long- term development, with no guarantee of it ever making it through to market launch. PJT had several of these long- term projects running at any time. They were allocated a development budget, but usually no dedicated resources were associated with the project. Less than half of these long-term projects ever even reached the stage of being test marketed. Around 20 per cent never got past the con- cept stage, and less than 20 per cent ever went into pro- duction. However, the company viewed the development effort put into these ‘failed’ products as being worthwhile because it often led to ‘spin-off’ developments and ideas that could be used elsewhere. Up to this point ‘Orlando’ had been seen as unlikely ever to reach the test marketing stage, but that had now changed dramatically.
‘Orlando’ was a concept for a range of snack foods, described within the company as ‘savory potato cookies’. Essentially they were one and a half-inch discs of crisp, fried potato with a soft dairy cheese-like filling. The idea of incor- porating dairy fillings in snacks had been discussed within the industry for some time but the problems of manufac- turing such a product were formidable. Keeping the prod- uct crisp on the outside yet soft in the middle, while at the same time ensuring microbiological safety, would not be easy. Moreover such a product would have to be capable of" (Nigel 216)
Nigel, Slack,, Brandon-Jones, Alistair, Johnston, Robert, Betts, Alan. Operations and Process Management, 4th Edition. Pearson (Intl), 07/2015. VitalBook file.