Thinking up new products is the most exciting and creative part of the Cadbury business. Inspiration can come from all kinds of sources – a great meal in a restaurant, an unusual sweet tried on a foreign holiday, a delicious dessert – all it takes is for someone to wonder what it might be like with chocolate.
Cadbury product developers have total freedom and are encouraged to play with bags of ingredients, because it’s often when you’re having fun that you have the best ideas. It doesn’t matter how crazy something might sound, we consider everything our product developers can come up with.
And there’s more than one way to conjure up a new chocolate bar. Everyone likes talking about their favourite chocolate and we get lots of feedback from customers who tell us what they’d like to try. For instance, we invented the Creme Egg Twisted bar after hearing that people would like to have the Creme Egg experience all year round – but occasionally it’s more convenient to eat a bar of chocolate than an egg!
New products also emerge through state-of-the-art technology. We have people who travel the world discovering the newest chocolate and confectionary-making machinery. Finding a new piece of equipment or technique before anyone else allows us to be the first to produce amazing new products that you just have to treat yourself to.
And sometimes ideas come from the sensible marketing people who work at Cadbury headquarters. For instance they might have spotted a gap in the market and will ask us to fill it. We also devote lots of time to inventing new varieties of popular brands like Dairy Milk, because we know how popular they are and how much people are delighted with new variations.
Next stage: Perfecting the new idea