From historical data to faster concepts: How FlavorSum innovates 3× faster with Tastewise

FlavorSum helps food and beverage brands develop new products and flavors, but supporting customers at scale requires both speed and credible insight.

Historically, the team relied on tools focused on past product launches or slow primary research studies. While useful, those approaches made it difficult to quickly identify emerging consumer behavior and turn it into concept ideas for customers.

Using Tastewise, FlavorSum shifted from retrospective research to real-time consumer demand signals. By analyzing recipes, menus, and food conversations, the team can now identify emerging flavor spaces and translate them into concept territories, product ideas, and customer-ready stories.

FlavorSum needed to support a growing number of customer briefs while delivering sharper, trend-driven concepts.

• Insights focused on past launches
  Traditional tools such as Mintel and Innova showed historical product launches but offered limited visibility into emerging consumer behavior.
• Primary research was slow and expensive
  Testing ideas often required costly studies with large consumer samples.
• Concept timelines slowed innovation
  It could take around three weeks to develop concepts before flavor development could begin.
• Demand for credible trend stories
  Sales and marketing teams needed clear insight narratives for customer decks, blogs, and ebooks.

Tastewise became FlavorSum’s forward-looking insight layer for both concept development and marketing storytelling.

• Faster concept creation
  Using Tastewise signals, the team can build territories, names, and concept descriptions for briefs in about five business days.
• Clear trend narratives for customers
  Tastewise reveals growing spaces such as nostalgia-driven flavors and provenance twists, helping teams explain why a concept matters now.
• Shared insight foundation across teams
  The same dataset powers customer presentations, marketing content, and innovation concepts, keeping sales and marketing aligned.
• Reduced reliance on costly research
  Instant access to millions of food signals across recipes, menus, and social conversations reduces the need for repeated primary research.

To identify flavor opportunities and build customer-ready ideas, FlavorSum analyzes multiple streams of consumer demand signals through Tastewise.

• Recipe signals
  Recipe data reveals emerging flavor combinations and ingredients gaining traction in home cooking.
• Menu signals
  Restaurant menu activity highlights dishes and flavors that may soon influence packaged food innovation.
• Consumer food conversations
  Online food discussions surface motivations, flavor excitement, and cultural moments shaping demand.

By combining these signals, FlavorSum can quickly identify concept territories and translate them into product ideas that resonate with customers.