Case Study

FMCG: A Shared Sensory R&D Framework to Accelerate Innovation

The Client

A global R&D team seeking to strengthen product performance and accelerate innovation by better understanding and engineering flavour design for key user segments.

The Challenge

  • Clarify what “long-lasting flavour” truly means to users.
  • Translate complex technical drivers into a coherent development framework.
  • Align diverse R&D capability teams around a common language.
  • Build confidence that the framework was robust and future-proof.

The Results

  • A Shared Cross-Functional Framework – R&D teams now operate from a calibrated, common model rather than isolated optimisation streams.
  • Clear Engineering Targets for Flavour Longevity – Longevity is now defined across specific interdependent drivers, enabling more precise and predictable technology development.
  • Accelerated Innovation & Speed to Market – The unified User + Technology Model reduces ambiguity, streamlines decision-making across R&D teams, and accelerates alignment, enabling faster progression from concept to validated development pathways.
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Untapped Approach

We combined deep human insight, sensory science and technical modelling to create a unified, actionable framework.

  1. Defined the Flavour Longevity “User Model” via deep, qualitative product exploration
  2. Built a Multi-Factor “Technology Model” by translating user expectations into specific, measurable technical parameters.
  3. Combined User Model + Technology Model into an Ideal Product Model Blueprint, with Jobs To Be Done and Sensory Attribute requirements.
  4. Peer Review & Calibration ensuring robustness and internal client confidence across diverse R&D capabilities.
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“Untapped helped us transform flavour longevity from a subjective aspiration into a structured, multi-factor technical model. By aligning our sensory insight with deep user understanding, to create precise engineering parameters, they created a shared framework that reduces internal friction, strengthens cross-R&D collaboration, and will significantly accelerate our speed to market.”