Although the hard cheese market was in decline, there was growth in the sliced, grated, convenience, snacking and blended categories, which led Adams to invest, Jackson told FoodManufacture.co.uk in this exclusive podcast.
“The latter two, blended and snacking, we wanted to investigate a little bit further and provide a little bit of added value for our customers,” he said.
'Massive headroom for growth'
“When you look at those two sectors, there’s massive headroom for growth, penetration is very low and frequency of purchase is very low, so we built the innovation centre.”
So far, the centre has produced small 80g pick and mix variety packs of flavoured cheeses to encourage consumers to try new flavours.
Listen to this podcast to hear what Jackson thinks the next area of innovation in cheese will be.
Meanwhile, subscribe to Food Manufacture to read an interview with Adams Foods’s chief executive in the August issue of the magazine.