Young lady shopping at supermarket
Spotlight

Palate Maps™

Find the growth your market is missing

Palate Maps™ compares what consumers ideally want with what the market currently provides – revealing where demand is underserved so you can make better innovation, portfolio and retailer decisions.

Seeing beyond visible demand

Your category data shows what’s selling, which trends are growing, and what competitors are launching. Valuable as these signals are, they still leave one question unanswered: where does consumer demand exceed what’s available today?

By understanding where consumer demand is underserved, leaders can identify higher-value innovation opportunities, strengthen portfolio decisions, and focus investment where it is most likely to drive growth

How Palate Maps™ reveals hidden opportunity

Palate Maps™ uncovers the opportunities today's market data misses.

Consumer flavour, texture, ingredients, benefits, format, and packaging preferences cluster into distinct ideal experiences we call Palates.

By sizing Palate demand and mapping existing products against them, we create a clear view of what consumers want most, but the market has yet to deliver. When you truly understand where demand is underserved, you can make better innovation, portfolio, and retailer decisions.

Turn hidden demand into growth

Discovering underserved growth opportunities

Traditional market data shows what consumers buy today. Palate Maps™ uncovers what they would ideally choose if the market fully met their needs. By comparing consumer demand with marketplace supply, it reveals where demand is underserved and where the greatest growth opportunities exist.

Prioritising innovation and investment

Palate Maps™ allows you to focus innovation, portfolio, and R&D resources on the opportunities most likely to drive growth. Palate Maps™ helps teams make more confident investment decisions by identifying where unmet demand is greatest, rather than competing in crowded or overserved spaces.

Strengthening retailer conversations

Move beyond category performance to category opportunity. Palate Maps™ shows where retailer assortments under-serve shopper demand, enabling stronger sell-in conversations and more compelling category growth stories.

Building a differentiated portfolio

Understand where products compete for the same consumer need and where each has a distinct role to play. Palate Maps™ helps you reduce portfolio overlap, sharpen individual product propositions, and build a portfolio with clearer reasons for consumers and retailers to choose it.

How Palate Maps™ works

Once you can see ideal demand, you can see where the market isn’t serving it.

1. Define consumer palates

We identify the combinations of flavour, texture, ingredients, benefits, format, and packaging that consumers most value. These preferences cluster into distinct ideal experiences, known as Palates, creating a richer picture of demand than purchase behaviour alone.

Palate map

2. Map demand against market supply

We size each Palate and map existing products against it. This reveals where consumer demand is underserved, overserved, or poorly served by today’s market, highlighting opportunities that conventional category analysis can miss.

Hot dog palates

3. Turns insight into growth

Each opportunity is linked to the attributes consumers value most, making it easier to prioritise innovation, refine portfolios, strengthen retailer conversations, and target future investment.

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Our multidisciplinary teams are hard-wired to help you innovate, transform, and thrive in the next era.