Introduction
About the Project
Impact: Reduced NPD (New Product Development) cycle time by 70% reducing manual workload while keeping human food scientists in full creative control.
Project Details
Project Timeline
8 weeks
Tools Used
Claude Code, Antigravity
Figma
Company
Easycoder - Y Combinator Entry
Roles and Responsibilities
User Research, Mapping, Problem Solving, AI Prototype, Design Visuals, User Testing
Chapter 1
Discovery and Market Context
How it all Started ?
The project began through conversations and work with two companies in the FMCG ecosystem.
"Formulation expertise doesn't always prevent downstream problems"
Pure Blend Wellness
PBW developed a health powder from formulation to production. Despite strong scientific grounding, post-production regulatory hurdles in New Zealand, required a complete product and compliance review.
"Every iteration creates a delay further down the supply chain"
Pacific - Flavours and Ingredients
FMCG ingredient distributor, they noted that supplying ingredients for new product trials often involves multiple round of formulation before a full-scale order.
The Core Problem
From Brief to Shelf:
Why Food Innovation Takes 12–18 Months
The Reality of Food Scientist
Food scientists don't just "cook"—they balance a complex matrix of
Nutritional limits,
Cost constraints,
Sensory targets,
Ingredient availability, and
Country-specific food safety regulations.
Chapter 2
Ecosystem and Process Bottlenecks
The Stakeholder Matrix
A Matrix of Dependencies: The food scientist sits at the center of an intricate web, balancing raw ingredients, factory limits, cost targets, and legal claims.
People I worked with
Kaveri
Managed NPD at PBW
Abhy
NPD technical at P&G
The Bottleneck and Manual Timeline
Under the conventional New Product Development (NPD) process, food scientists spend months navigating a rigid, trial-and-error cycle. Because ingredient adjustments dynamically impact taste, shelf-life, production cost, and regional compliance, a single change mid-process creates cascading delays.
Statistics
12-18 months
per single product line
8-12 weeks
of lost time per cycle
15-30 batches
per recipe target
45-60 days
spent in lab re-sampling
The End-to-End NPD Workflow ( How does the process work?)
Developing an FMCG product is a collaborative process involving sales, technical, NPD, quality, manufacturing and the customer. Each stage introduces its own reviews, approvals and dependencies before a product can reach the shelf.
Pain Zone 1 (Formulation Loop):
Technical teams waste weeks in endless benchtop trial-and-error cycles between sample creation and internal reviews.
Pain Zone 2 (Supply Chain & Stakeholder Delay):
Disconnected feedback loops between sales, marketing, and customers force mid-stage recipe re-adjustments.
Pain Zone 3 (Late-Stage Compliance & Costing Wall):
Regulatory and cost blockages are discovered late in packaging and claims approval, forcing complete product resets.
Key Bottlenecks in Product Formulation
Food Scientist's Perspective
From the food scientist's perspective, product development is a continuous cycle of formulating, testing, evaluating and reformulating. A formulation must satisfy multiple requirements simultaneously, from sensory and nutritional targets to cost, claims and manufacturing feasibility.
Chapter 3
Insight, Stratergy and Refined Framing
Problems Identified
Food R&D teams lose months in repetitive trial-and-error iterations, fragmented compliance checks, and scattered legacy data, delaying go-to-market and risking late-stage formulation failure.
Repeated sampling and testing add days or weeks with every failed iteration.
Tweaking one ingredient impacts nutrition, cost, sensory performance, claims, and manufacturability.
Critical data is siloed across sales, R&D, and regulatory teams, creating back-and-forth.
Regulatory or manufacturing bottlenecks surface too late, forcing costly rework.
Insights – Affinity Mapping
Competitive Landscape & Market Gap
Chapter 4
Problem Framing and Goals
How Might We Statements
HMW 1
How might we eliminate blind recipe experimentation without sacrificing sensory quality?
HMW 2
How might we expose hidden cost and regulatory failures before physical lab trials begin?
HMW 3
How might we keep cross-functional teams aligned without drowning the food scientist in manual updates?
The Stratergic Pivot
The Strategic Pivot: Why AI, and Where Does It Belong?
Solving these three challenges manually would require complex, fragmented software suites that slow down the scientist.
We decided to introduce an AI-powered co-pilot model, not to automate the creative process, but to handle heavy data synthesis and real-time matrix calculations.
Core Principle: AI is proposes and predicts; the food scientist decides
Core Design Goals
Goals and Opportunitty
Chapter 4
Solution, IA & Prototyping
What part of the process will AI meaningfully support?
AI proposes. The scientist decides.
Prototype Stage 1 — Parameterization & Brief Capture (User -> AI)
Inspiration for AI Screens
Inspiration from other AI Agents
New Product Development Process
New Product Development Process
Developing an FMCG product is a collaborative process involving sales, technical, NPD, quality, manufacturing and the customer.
Chapter 5
Impact & Business Results
Results
Olif is already demonstrating strong commercial validation through active live pilots with industry leaders Pacific Flavours & Ingredients and Pureblend Wellness (PBW). By integrating Olif into their development and compliance workflows. Olif delivers immediate, measurable efficiency on the factory floor.
