R&D and Innovation Strategy

Grow and benefit from the expertise of a proven team of industry leaders.

Product Innovation Ideation

Kick-start your innovation with a proven process for ideating against strategic areas of opportunity in 1 to 3 days.

Innovation Assessment

Detailed overall assessment of your product development life cycle opportunities, from ideation to commercialization and actionable recommendations.

Open Innovation

Build a tailored network for your R&D needs and create layers of competitive advantage by building proprietary technology from leading experts.

Design to Consumer Value

Increase margins by increasing the consumer value of your products and challenging everything that customers do not value.

Quality Assurance

Whether it's bringing acrylamide levels down or performing a global food safety gap analysis, we can help you improve your regulatory and safety systems.

load more All Services

Rebounding from the Covid19

In this unprecedented time of a global pandemic many consumer goods companies are fighting for survival. In contrast, many food manufacturers who make shelf stable food will be reporting record results as consumers stock up and stay at home. What will the future hold? No one can say for sure. However, based on my own experience with economic crises of the past, we should expect a recovery. But there will be winners and losers. The winners will be those companies who can balance the need for value propositions while still investing in product innovation.

While we have never been through something of the magnitude of the Covid19 crisis, I have worked through the economic meltdowns in various parts of the world over the last three decades. For example, when I was responsible for R&D for PepsiCo’s Food business, I was on the front line during the Argentina meltdown of 2001. There were literally fires in the street, massive unemployment and an economy that shrank by a fifth. I was in Brazil when the Real crashed in 1999 following the Asian financial crisis in 1997. The economic hardships were very real. Nevertheless, we were able to offer value on the one hand while still finding ways to innovate.

For example, to create value we adjusted our price pack architecture to match available “money in the pocket.” To innovate, we offered new and more authentic tasting flavors. That gave stressed consumers a little break to enjoy their favorite snacks. As a result, as economies in countries like Brazil and Argentina and others recovered, we were able to pick up significant market share from competitors who let quality slip in the name of cost savings and who lost relevance with little support or innovation. In some cases, we gained double digit market share that paid great dividends in the following years.

CJB and Associates can help companies with smart cost savings programs with a Design to Consumer Value approach that focuses on what consumers are willing to pay for and thereby optimizing value for them. The aftermath of Covid19 will likely change what consumers are willing to pay for and an agile consumer goods company will respond accordingly and quickly. We offer a one or two day facilitation using proven methodology that produces tangible and actionable results as the outcome.

Our team

Associates & Partners

We are a team of highly experienced R&D scientists and engineers with especially deep experience in the food and beverage industry including building Health & Wellness portfolios globally. We have built an extensive, open innovation network with external research partners across universities, suppliers, consultants, and small entrepreneurs located around the world. We’re ready to solve your toughest R&D and product development challenges.

LET'S GET IN TOUCH

Adelmo Monsalve-González

Ph.D. Food Scientist and Plant Protein Expert

Associate

View Profile

David Key

Business Development and Futurist

Associate

View Profile

Mohan Rao

All Around Expert

Associate

View Profile

Adriana Quintanar Guzmán

Ph.D. Grain scientist.

Associate

View Profile

More Associates & Partners

Our Success

The Facts

Facilitated a session with the senior R&D team and worked with the team to implement a new innovation operating model.

$10 Billion CPG company

Multiple product Innovations for their on premise food and beverage offerings led to incremental revenue.

Weight Watchers

Shortly after the breakup of Sara Lee holding, we created a long term innovation pipeline leveraging CJB’s global network of external solution providers.

Hillshire

CJB helped the company design their new R&D Center fostering much closer interaction with R&D and the other functions.

$2 Billion CPG Company

In a matter of weeks CJB and team lowered the sodium level for Popchips by over 25% AND improved product acceptance.

Popchips

Email Us: info@cjbandassociates.com

about CJB & Associates

Why Choose Us

extensive open innovation network

We have built an extensive open innovation network with external research partners across universities, suppliers, consultants and small entrepreneurs located around the world.

high performing teams

CJB and Associates brings high performing teams with diverse backgrounds, talents and work styles. We have experience working across diverse cultures across the world.