The food processing and services sector is facing several challenges such as volatile market demand, quality issues, supply-demand mismatch, and complex production constraints. In this context, companies in the food industry are realizing the importance of leveraging demand forecasting to efficiently forecast demand and anticipate sales of new innovative products. Further, new food innovation is a fine balancing act, between costs of development and the benefit or risk of going to market. The objective is not to eliminate the risks, since this is impossible, but rather to reduce and manage the risk towards picking the winners.
In this unit, you will:
- Learn a simple model to predict demand for your new food product.
- Appreciate the importance of a structured method for costing a new food product.