"product" news and stories

Have you ever looked at a product and thought I could come up with that! or this would be so much better if they had just added (blank)? Now is your chance to have your idea made into a blockbuster. Kraft announced in last week's Wall Street Journal that they are accepting ideas from real people about what products they want to see on the shelves. Generally, product ideas come via market researchers or trend-watching firms, then are made into reality by food scientists (link to bread article) before being taste tested by groups of consumers. In this new campaign, the product starts and ends with consumers.

In all honesty, it sounds like they must be having some creative problems with their product development team, especially because they are particularly interested in ideas that haven been patented and "can be brought to market quickly." Nevertheless, this sounds like a great opportunity for anyone with an innovative idea to get their product across to one of the largest food companies in the world - without the usual hassle and red tape that go along with regular submissions.

There is a set of rules to help protect the company and the rights of the person submitting the idea for new products, packaging, or business processes/systems (all of which are being accepted), so be sure to check them out first.

 

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At Luxist, Deidre reported that a new scent called the Spirit of Scotland is to go on sale soon. Following in the footsteps of another unusual scent, the Spirit of Scotland is supposed to smell like malt whisky. While people have sample the scent and given it positive reviews, not everyone feels that it actually smells like whisky. Apparently, it has smoky, peaty notes with floral overtones. Honestly, it seems like you wouldn't want to walk around smelling like whisky all day, so it's probably just as well that the perfume is not an exact match for the spirit. Of course, if you already walk around smelling like whisky and are looking for a way to hide that, this could be the perfect product. 

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A Japanese company called VitaCraft has come out with a pan that communicates with the stove top using RFID. Simply place your recipe card under the reader, and the pan will monitor and adjust the heat on the pan according to the recipe. This is a really neat idea, but the problem is that there's simply more to recipes than heat regulation. There are just too many variables to regulate when cooking, which is probably why it's so difficult to make a robot to cook without supervision.

Another potential problem with the RFID pan is that someone could hack it to burn your shrimp. Think about it--just go around the city with a powerful RFID transmitter and burn everyone's meal!

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