Consumer-oriented innovation in the food and personal care products sectors: understanding consumers and using their insights in the innovation process

In this chapter, we clarify the concept of consumer-oriented innovation in the food and personal products sectors and define it as a process towards the development of a new product or service in which an integrated analysis and understanding of consumers’ wants, needs and preference formation play a key role. We then outline relevant streams of research that may promote the implementation of consumer-oriented innovation in these sectors. We first review research on understanding consumers, notably on quality perception, associated methods, and their application in innovation processes. We then review research on innovation management, emphasizing the use of consumer insight information in innovation processes. We conclude that a better integration of consumer research and research on innovation management would benefit the innovation process.