New Product Development is a lot harder than it first appears and the history of grocery retail is littered with thousands, if not millions, of failed NPD initiatives. Most NPD fails to last longer than a year, with the majority of products being delisted having failed to gain sufficient momentum with shoppers.
According to IRI, the decline in new product development started in 2013 and the rate of new product launches has been decelerating steadily since then, being felt across virtually all categories and all retailers. This increasingly inhospitable environment has also meant that brands are given less time to prove the worth of new products, with retailers becoming less patient in terms of letting a new product bed-in and resonate with shoppers.
There are many reasons why so many product launches are doomed to fail. Here we will assess the foundations for successful NPD, both in terms of the actual product development and how these innovations can be successfully landed in the retail environment.