PRODUCT DEVELOPMENT
The road to a shelf-ready product may be winding, but it doesn’t have to be cumbersome. Whether you have just a spark of an idea, a concept that needs further development and validation, or a prototype that’s not quite right, Canada’s Smartest Kitchen can help you refine your food or beverage product idea and discover your proprietary ingredient’s true potential.
Product Ideation
Our talented culinary professionals will host an initial ideation session with your business to generate constructive conversations on new opportunities for your existing or potential products. Our product developers will brainstorm creative, innovative and unique ideas with your team, and plan out a phased statement of work for your review and approval.
Benchtop Formulation
Our product development team include certified Red Seal Chef culinary experts and specialists in many areas including seafood, agriculture, functional foods, gluten free, and healthy nutrition. Combining these specialties with their in-depth industry knowledge, as well as a strong understanding of current culinary trends, they are well equipped to develop proprietary formulas based on consumer and industry needs.
Food Science
Ensuring your food is of the highest quality and meets the regulations required to enter the marketplace is an integral part of the food development process. CSK has a strong understanding of industry standards and works with many accredited facilities with extensive expertise in risk mitigation, ensuring your brand and reputation are considered at every stage of the process: from supplier audits and analysis of raw materials, to process quality assurance, quality control checks, and final product analysis.
Product Reformulation & Nutritional Profiling
Utilize the expertise of our product development team to maintain the optimal balance of taste and texture your customers are looking for, while also exploring your product’s nutritional profile. Through our applied research and reformulation services, we can help you clean up your product label, look at options for functional claims or ‘free-from’ status, and update your recipes to meet specific nutritional goals (ex. reduced sugar, reduced sodium, all natural ingredients, restorative or sustainable ingredients.) Our staff can discuss with you all of the culinary possibilities for adding, reducing or changing a product’s nutritional characteristics, and can prepare or amend nutritional facts tables (NFT’s) to meet all Canadian regulations and reporting protocols.