Indulgent and healthy, is it possible? Innovating Snacks for Ülker

A collaborative effort highlighting the power of agile innovation in meeting consumer demands while maintaining brand identity and product appeal.

Healthier Products with Great Taste

Ülker, a leading Turkish confectionery company, sought to innovate their O’lala Souffle dessert line by introducing healthier options. The challenge was to maintain the indulgency while pivoting towards a clean label approach. To achieve this, Ülker partnered with us at InsightsNow, International Flavors & Fragrances (IFF), and consulting firm CuliNex. The goal was to develop and evaluate new concepts with lower sugar, higher protein, and healthy fruit flavors.

Dynamic Innovation

To address this challenge, we employed agile innovation sprints, a dynamic design-thinking methodology encompassing all aspects of product and taste design.

Here are the key steps:

1. Analyze and Scope: We scoped out the project parameters and goals, setting a clear path forward.
2. Empathize and Clarify: Using our PlayFULL Insights™, participants engaged in immersive storytelling through 3-D modeling exercises, capturing authentic consumer insights and future aspirations.
3. Explore and Ideate: We brainstormed and prototyped healthier and indulgent concepts.
4. Develop and Test: Through behavioral tournament surveys and our Implicit/Explicit Test™ we gathered iterative consumer feedback, providing a calibrated classification of consumer reactions.
5. Prepare to Implement: We formulated actionable plans based on the insights gathered, guiding Ülker towards the most promising product concepts.

Throughout the process, the team focused on understanding consumer perceptions of clean label claims and the sensory drivers of indulgence. The implicit testing provided a quantifiable measure of consumer preferences, ensuring that people would love the chosen concepts.

Snacks that People Love

The agile approach delivered several high-performing concepts, with a blend of traditional indulgent and healthier options. Key insights revealed that while consumers showed interest in healthier ingredients, indulgence still had a strong appeal: the low sugar claim did not resonate well, while positioning the snacks as a source of protein did.
These findings enabled Ülker to refine their product communication and ingredient choices. The new snacks balanced indulgence with healthier attributes for market success, demonstrating the effectiveness of agile market research in product innovation.