Product Quality Audits

We worked with a large global confectionery company over a 6 month period to monitor the quality performance of their new ice cream range.

Business Challenge: A global confectionery company wanted to monitor the quality performance of its new Icecream range over a 6 month period across established and new markets. The objective was to understand the quality of production from a third party manufacturer against the agreed Quality standards. In addition, they sought to better understand the distribution network of their product right through to in-store marketing and pricing.

Project Challenge:

The challenge was to develop a new sub-set of quality standards with a client who was new to the product category, which would be relevant across multiple markets and store types. Covering vast distances over a short period of time, we needed to explore key quality attributes relating to the quality of the cabinet, the temperature, the inner & outer packaging, and the ice cream’s sensory performance.

How did we help? Using our trained auditor network we developed a bespoke quality audit covering 10 products across 10 markets per cycle, running each month for 6 months.

We delved into our large researcher database to identify the correct auditors per location to rapidly cover large distances across each country so that we could achieve an accurate and representative sample size for the product. Using our Quality audit App, we captured location, store type, store name, cabinet performance, temperature, price points, branding material, and product quality performance for on-pack, in the pack, and in-use. We measured and evaluated performance, mapping it against the pre-agreed standards. These results were reported in real-time to the client so they could get an up-to-date understanding of what was happening.

What was the impact on our clients business? They were able to identify shortcomings in their third party’s performance, and as a result, make some technical changes to improve product performance. We also identified gaps in their distribution network which were then rectified and a focus was placed on working with their local marketing teams to improve the instore experience.

This is now an ongoing program, which allows our client to understand and track product quality performance and monitor which areas along the supply chain require attention. Trending results over cycles have led to action being taken to improve product quality. The program also benefits innovation objectives and has helped our client to track the performance of new product launches vs. the norm.