What to prepare before approaching a food product developer: the brief in ten questions

Our first conversation with a client almost always ends with the same sentence: “Send us a short brief.” Not because we like forms, but because every question in the brief becomes a decision in the lab. Without an answer, we guess, and sometimes we guess wrong.

Here are the ten questions, and why they matter.

1. What is the product and how does the consumer use it?

“Protein bar” is not enough. A bar eaten after training, in a gym, at room temperature, is different from one eaten at home from the fridge. Use decides texture, portion size and storage conditions.

2. Which market or country?

Regulation, permitted claims, nutrition labelling, allergens and kosher status differ between Israel, the US and the EU. So does the expected taste.

3. Which nutritional values and claims?

“High protein”, “low sugar”, “gluten free”, “vegan”. Each claim is a constraint on the formulation, and sometimes the constraints conflict: more protein, less sugar and still soft on the shelf is a real engineering problem.

4. Which raw materials are allowed or banned?

Allergens, preservatives, colours, GMO ingredients, animal origin. The clearer the list up front, the fewer repeat rounds.

5. What is the target price and pack size?

Raw-material cost per portion is the constraint that keeps many good developments from reaching the shelf. That is the reality, and it calls for a real solution that works. If the shelf price is known, we can work backwards to what the formulation can afford.

6. Which storage conditions and how much shelf life?

Chilled, frozen or ambient. Three months or a year. The answer sets the safety strategy (hurdles), the heat treatment and the packaging.

7. Which production equipment is available?

Is there a plant? Which one? Is there a homogenizer, a dryer, an extruder, a packaging line? We develop against the equipment that exists, or against a co-packer chosen together. A development that ignores the equipment is one that will have to start over.

8. What is the estimated production volume?

A thousand units a month or a hundred thousand. Volume decides which raw materials are available at a price, which technology is reasonable, and whether scale-up is even needed at this stage.

9. Is there a reference product?

An existing product you want to resemble, differ from, or improve on. “Like X but with less sugar” is an excellent brief, because X can be measured and compared.

10. What has already been done?

Formulas, trials, test results, reports, presentations, answers from an AI model. Everything that exists saves time. Failed trials too: they tell us what has already been tested.

And if you have no answer to half of these?

That is the normal situation, and it is fine. Part of our job is to turn an early idea into a structured brief. In the first conversation we go through the questions and mark what is known, what needs deciding and what needs testing. And if you arrived with a tidy answer from an AI model, excellent. We confirm what is right in it, and ask what happens when it meets the line and the palate.

More on the development process, or tell us about the product and we start from there.