You have a global responsibility for innovation at AAK. How
is this work executed considering that taste preferences
and trends vary from region to region?
Although there are a number of global trends, for example
within nutrition, it is very important to notice that food
preferences vary across the globe. At AAK we have always
emphasized innovation close to our customers. In fact,
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has always been our Customer Co-Development teams.
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close cooperation between us as an ingredient supplier
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means living in the region, to be part of the regional taste
preferences and notice emerging customer trends – not
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this industry we are also consumers of the products that we
deliver.
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company program The AAK Way. How is this progressing?
I see a lot of progress, mainly in “making innovation part
of everybody’s job”. Innovation was included in The AAK
Way to ensure that it becomes more than just new product
development and a technological exercise. Innovation
means bringing novelty to work, not just to create novelty.
This is done in several ways, by including business responsibilities
in the leadership of the innovation project and by
establishing tools to link the growing AAK organization
together in an innovation community which can
communicate and challenge each other’s insights
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for every step of the process. Each step has its
challenges, and in each step we have initiatives
to improve, from insights to implementation.
Innovation means bringing novelty
to work, not just to create novelty.
Karsten Nielsen with CEO Johan Westman in
the chocolate laboratory in Aarhus, Denmark.