I did the same assignment last year.
The type of food prodcut development is either the line extension or "new to the worlld" product.
The reasons behind the food product development may include health issues, the environemt (recyclable packaging, etc), convenience and cost, company profitability (no way!
), etc.
Idea generation = posibble solutions to design brief- suggestions for food product that meet the aim. Screening= eliminating those that aren't feasible/dont meet the aim.
Market research= surveys to see what people like, looking at statistics to see what they like, etc.
Product specifications= At this stage, you should be down to one or two products. You need to know the requirements (raw materials), target market, consumer benefits, pricing strategies (low price so heaps of people by it, or high priced with smaller amounts of people buying it, but larger profit per batch, etc)
Feasibility study: You analyse the resources and the anticipated profit. You can just make up the prices or whatever for the resources (or actually go to the supermarket or supermarket website to see the prices of similar products). You estimate the cost of a batch of the product, the cost of the product itself, the pricing strategy (same as in product specifications, but maybe a bit more detailed).
Production process develoipment: where you're getting your raw materials from, types of testing of raw materials to determine if they meet standards or not. quality control, equipment, HACCP for the actual process, list the procedure for the production process (a good way to do this is through that flow diagram you learnt in food manufacture).
Development of a prototype: producing the product. You should also create variations of the product and determine which ones best by a food technologist or whatever (just make it up). You also develop the package at this point.
Testing product prototype: surveys, letting people taste test the prioduct, getting professional evauators to determine if its good or not, etc.
Marketing plan: 2 ways to promote (could be anything, through posters, television, etc). You should have learnt this stuff in class. You should have learnt all this stuff in class. Get the excel book. Its pretty good.
