CASE STUDY | THE GUT STUFF

Delivering superior product experiences with a great tasting, plant-based collagen snack bar.

Commission to completion in just 3 weeks.
As part of a wider Product Hub initiative – Mainstream Maker – we identified The Gut Stuff as a challenger brand that showed huge potential to become the next big mainstream product.
CONTEXT

While the wider gut health category is largely focused in the dairy aisle at present, The Gut Stuff are taking a different approach to digestive health within the dynamic functional snack bar category.

What are consumer expectations for a snack bar that promises gut health benefits, and does the product meet them? What unique sensory features help to communicate these functional benefits?

PROCESS

We wanted to delve deeper into consumer perceptions of the brand and product, to arm The Gut Stuff team with the data they need to support and influence buy-in at retailer meetings.

We conducted a Concept Product Test using our iHUT methodology, with 150 UK households that currently buy in to the functional snack bar category. We first asked consumers to review the product concepts online, before sending products for them to test over the course of a 7-day period.

We also included our Sensory Portrait bolt-on tool, using MMR's sensory panels to gain an objective understanding of the alignment between the sensorial experience, product attributes and functional health benefits.

gutstuffconcept
The Gut Stuff - Gut Microbiome 101
RESULTS

Consumers loved the concept behind The Gut Stuff, and they loved the product too. Post-trial, for overall appeal and purchase intent, The Gut Stuff achieved parity with our wider sweet snack norms – (a huge achievement within a challenging norms category that includes the likes of Snickers and Mars Bar!)

The Gut Stuff also outperformed a market leading brand when benchmarked against purchase intent, and after the 7-day in-home product trial a whopping 86% of consumers agreed that the product improved their gut health.

Our Sensory Portrait tool allowed us to delve deeper, highlighting how physical product attributes - such as dense texture, and chunky fruit / nut inclusions - backed up functional health benefits. They also uncovered opportunities to optimize and balance the flavor profile of some of the variants that weren’t quite hitting the mark.

 

The Gut Stuff PH_Results
 
WHAT NEXT?

The Gut Stuff is doing a great job at delivering against consumer expectations and functional health benefits. With a little tweaking, this brand has a huge opportunity to push forward, outperform even more of the competition and become the next mainstream choice in consumers’ gut health product repertoire!

 

The Gut Stuff Testimonial

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