Innovation is key in Greenyard’s Strategy 2030 to become a pure-plant food powerhouse. By offering new food experiences, we help people rediscover the benefits of fruit and vegetables, as we redefine what healthy food looks and tastes like. Technology, especially data, is crucial for creating a sustainable chain behind our daily diets. It improves quality control, reduces waste, and aligns supply with demand.
In the financial year 2022-2023, Greenyard established a dedicated team at Group level to support and stimulate innovation in every layer of the company and across all divisions. “Anyone within Greenyard can come up with good ideas,” says Sylvain Mermod, recently appointed Group Innovation Manager. “But within the constraints of the daily operations, it’s not always easy to find the means and the time to bring these ideas to fruition. That is why we created a structure where we can keep track of these ideas and determine how they can be transformed into real-life, commercially viable products and processes.”
“This does not mean we’re new to the innovation game,” continues Sylvain Mermod. “On the contrary, we are introducing hundreds of new recipes and products every year, mostly at the request of customers. But it’s important to also look beyond these recurring requests and find the time and space to think about new food concepts and new food experiences that tap into new consumer trends. To remain relevant in the future, we need to innovate for the market and future consumer needs. We drive the change. At the same time, it will always be important that our customers also get behind our ideas. We need to do this together with them.”
Some of these innovations may take a while to find their place in the market. “Consumer trends tend to take unexpected turns,” says Merel Noorts, Sustainability and Innovation Coordinator for Greenyard Fresh Belgium. “Last year, we noticed consumers going back-to-basics with a renewed interest in comfort food and traditional meals like soups, stews and mashes. This shows that consumers may need some time to get used to certain new products. Being a private label company, gives us the flexibility to stop and relaunch products because sometimes, you just need to try more than once. Be persistent if you know you’re on the right track. For example, we saw our cauliflower rice finally taking a definitive place in the shelves last year. So it’s really all about patience and trusting your vision.
Looking at innovation at a Group level also allows us to share our expertise and leverage the footprint that we have as a company. It’s one of our strategic focus areas to prioritise digitalisation and use all available data to drive innovation and enhance our services. Therefore, we allocate resources and collaborate with disruptive companies to support controlled growth. “This is especially important when it comes to developing and selecting the right technologies to improve the efficiency within our supply chain. The forecasting tools we need within our Integrated Customer Relationships (ICR) model to better match supply with actual demand are a good example of this. The same goes for preventing food waste, by repurposing by-product like the peels or cut-offs that we have in our fresh convenience, frozen and prepared business. Because we have a good overview of our divisions at Group level, it is much easier to see how they can be used in existing Greenyard-products or even turned into completely new products.”
Finally, we are also looking outside of Greenyard for inspiration. “We are open to collaborations with other innovative companies in our sector and actively participate in international research projects,” says Sylvain Mermod. “Our recent acquisition of Gigi Gelato is another good example of how we can speed up things through open innovation. By using our access to European retailers, we can maximise the distribution of a ground-breaking, pure-plant gelato to a much wider audience. It shows that we can offer promising start-ups and scale-ups in pure-plant food a great opportunity. Not just connecting them to large retailers, but also to resilient resources coming from our dedicated growers and our own strong platform. In the end, it’s all about turning our vision for a healthier and more sustainable future into reality.”
