Creative spirit - IFI FebMar 10

I have been at Brown-Forman for 11 years but also spent the previous 14 years in the food and beverage industry both in the USA and Europe. My experience also includes companies such as General Mills, Kraft Foods, Campbell Soup, Jacobs-Suchard, Tropicana/Seagrams and Pepsico. My formal education and training is in chemistry, food chemistry and chemical engineering and I have a PhD in food chemistry and human nutrition from the University of Illinois.

 

My role is leading the global R&D organisation which resides in two different locations: Louisville, Kentucky, and Amatitan, Jalisco, Mexico.

 

This organisation is responsible for designing and executing new innovation for all of our brands. This ranges from developing recipes for new drinks to designing new brands, and from new spirits to new low-alcohol drinks. The group is also responsible for the design of all new processes installed in our manufacturing facilities globally, like new distillation processes, improved methods of preparing the wood for our barrels or innovative ways to produce our products in a more economical or environmentally responsible way.

 

On the contrary, an extraordinary amount of innovation is currently taking place at Brown-Forman. For example, the effort to keep a brand like Jack Daniel’s true to its heritage and the original taste is enormous. We must make sure that every drop of Jack Daniel’s conforms to strict standards and maintains the taste profile that consumers have come to know for over 100 years. Accomplishing such a task with many of the ingredients (different sources of corn, different sources of oak for our maturation barrels, and so on) changing over the years takes innovation, creativity, technical expertise and passion.

 

Jack Daniel’s is consumed in many different regions of the world where local taste preferences vary significantly. For example, Jack and Coke is one of the most recognisable bar drinks in the world. Brown-Forman produces a Ready-to-Drink (RTD) Jack & Cola drink that has to be adjusted to fit local cola taste preferences. We had to come up with five different recipes for this drink since the consumer perception and liking of the cola portion is significantly different from Australia to North America to Mexico to Europe. Satisfying the needs and wants of the global consumer takes an enormous amount of innovation.

 

Examples of innovative new products introduced globally by Brown-Forman in the last 18 months include Finlandia Black Currant in Poland, Southern Comfort Ready to Pour (RTP) cocktails in Sweet Tea and Hurricane variants in the USA, Southern Comfort Lime and Lemonade RTD in the UK, and Finlandia Tangerine all-natural flavour globally.

 

We have a formal NPD process we call the stage/gate process, which we use for all work done on any new and innovative idea related to any of our brands. Through this process and with multifunctional teams, we take a new idea through the phases of identification, consumer research, prototyping, R&D and packaging testing. Ultimately, we reach a form of final consumer testing or test market in order to assess the true business potential of the idea. If the idea is proven worthy by consumers we move forward with limited, national or global introduction.

 

The process is flexible in terms of the time it takes, and it needs to be in order to address the multitude of introductions and the diversity of the innovative ideas we investigate. For example, it can take only six months from idea inception to the market introduction for a new RTD Jack Daniels Country Cocktail or a flavour line extension, or as long as 18 months for a new spirit brand without maturation. It can take many years when you start talking about different whiskies that need to be matured in barrels before they are introduced to the market.

 

This maturation time required for new product development in the whiskey area may be the reason that, to an outside observer, innovation appears to be very slow or non-existent in this particular area of our business. That is certainly not true when you experience the activity lately at Brown-Forman.

 

Finlandia has some of the purest ingredients of all vodkas in the marketplace, and it’s made with pure spring water from a special source in Finland. As such, any flavour has to be pristine and natural and absent of any artificial or off-flavours produced during the manufacturing process. The flavours used in Finlandia are all natural, true to the fruit and true to nature with minimal processing. They possess superior top notes and they demonstrate the so-called natural “burst” of aroma which reminds consumers of the sensation of biting into a real fruit. We believe our citrus flavours (tangerine and grapefruit) are superior to the competition, and the brand received a double gold medal award for the grapefruit expression in the 2007 San Francisco World Spirits.

 

We are always exploring new flavours for the global market, and we may introduce local favourites, as we just did in Eastern Europe and Poland with the successful introduction of Black Currant last September.

 

Whiskey products have complex flavours and volatile components that come from the maturation process and the interactions with the wood over time. When we design a whiskey liqueur the key challenge is to choose ingredients and additional flavours that on one side complement the already existing flavours in the product (whiskey notes) and on the other hand add the desired new flavours dictated by the nature of the liqueur that is designed. A good example is whiskey liqueur Southern Comfort, which is a harmonic combination of whiskey, stone fruit and citrus notes.

 

Brown-Forman produces wine from grapes grown on company vineyards. The work on the production and development side is done by expert winemakers that are located on site in California. Our R&D team collaborates closely with the winemakers and provides full technical support that includes sensory and analytical support as well as support on different process innovations.

 

Our approach is more of an ‘environmental stewardship’ one. We consume fewer natural resources, reduce harmful emissions and recover and reuse resources. We have also focused on the organic approach with the Bonterra wines and vineyards in California. Bonterra and Fetzer wines and vineyards have received several environmental awards from the state of California for their environmental stewardship.

 

Very important, as was disclosed by our CEO Paul Varga in our latest quarterly results news release. Consumers have shifted their consumption lately to more in-home rather than on-premise due to the tough economic conditions. This trend was recognised by our company and addressed immediately by intensifying our activity in the RTD and RTP categories. Examples of innovative new RTD and RTP products introduced globally by Brown-Forman in the last 18 months include the new European Jack Daniel’s & Cola RTD cocktail, the Jack & Cola and Jack & Ginger RTDs in Mexico, and the El Jimador New Mix Margarita, Spicy Mango and Paloma RTD flavours for the US market.

 

A spirit product that can be liked equally by both male and female consumers.