i360 Audit and Growth Transformation is the comprehensive diagnostic and transformation programme for food and drink businesses that need the honest picture before they commit to direction. The audit covers the full business across six dimensions integrated as one view (commercial performance and growth, brand health and equity, portfolio dynamics, channel and customer performance, innovation pipeline credibility, operational and organisational capability). The transformation work that follows is scoped against what the audit surfaces, which means the transformation is anchored in what is actually true about the business rather than what the team has assumed.
It is not the right tool for every brief. If the question is about forward opportunity rather than existing business diagnosis, Opportunity Mapping is the right starting point. If the question is about sequencing a specific pipeline rather than diagnosing the broader business, Future Food Pipeline Builder is the better fit. If the work is platform-specific rather than business-wide, Platform and Territory Building goes deeper into a single platform. i360 sits specifically when the brief is the full diagnostic and the transformation that follows.
Six dimensions. One integrated diagnostic picture.
The audit covers the full business across six integrated dimensions, scoped at the right depth for the specific brief. The structural difference between i360 and partial growth audits is that all six dimensions are run together rather than reported separately, with the cross-dimensional integration as the value rather than as an optional final step.
Understanding your commercial performance and brand health
A clear view of both business performance and brand strength, combining revenue trends, margin dynamics, growth versus category and competitors, and value distribution with measures of awareness, consideration, perception and brand equity. Together these metrics reveal where growth is genuinely being delivered, whether brand strategy is translating into commercial results, and where investment is creating measurable impact versus being absorbed without return.
Portfolio, Channel & Customer Performance
A comprehensive view of where value is created across the business, combining portfolio performance by brand, sub-brand, SKU, category, and region with channel mix, customer concentration, and retailer or operator performance. Together, these insights reveal which parts of the portfolio are truly driving growth, where commercial value is concentrated, and where customer or channel dependencies may be creating hidden risks or masking underlying performance trends.
Innovation & Organisational Readiness
An assessment of the business’s ability to deliver future growth, combining innovation pipeline strength, launch performance, and growth opportunity alignment with operational capability, organisational structure, leadership effectiveness, and team readiness. Together, these insights reveal whether the growth strategy has a credible path to execution, where capability gaps may constrain progress, and what level of transformation the organisation is realistically equipped to achieve.
Food and drink is all we do
We are not a generalist transformation consultancy that takes the occasional food brief. Food and drink is the only sector we work in. Our senior team has run diagnostic and transformation work inside the sector, which means the audit reads against the real commercial environment of food and drink rather than against a cross-sector consulting playbook. C-suite audiences get a diagnostic that matches the reality they operate in, not a framework that needs translating into the sector before the recommendations can be acted on.
That focus is why we work with 11 of the UK’s top 40 food and drink brands.
Other ways to unlock growth opportunities
i360 Audit and Growth Transformation is one tool in the broader Unlock Growth Opportunities toolkit. The most common buyer journey from i360 is into one of the other three Challenge 02 services, with the diagnostic surfacing the priority area for the transformation work that follows.
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Opportunity Mapping
Strategic mapping of where to play in food and drink.
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Future Food Pipeline Builder
A structured methodology for building credible, sequenced, executable food and drink innovation pipelines.
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Platform & Territory Building
Deep platform development that picks up where opportunity mapping ends and where execution begins.
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Needs Landscaping
Structured consumer-needs mapping that surfaces the unmet, under-served and emerging needs worth commercial attention.
View our case studies
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Biotiful Gut Health
Biotiful Gut Health needed three potential ambient territories validated before committing development resource. FIS Group investigated and defined each territory, developed concept iterations, ran quantitative consumer testing and built a DVF prioritisation model – giving Biotiful a clear, evidence-based view of where to focus first.
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Burger King
Burger King needed in-depth consumer testing of two new burger builds across multiple variants before launch. FIS Group delivered a real-store central location test with penalty analysis and innovation expert input, providing precise optimisation insight and benchmarks to inform future menu development.
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Chaiiwala
Chaiiwala needed to professionalise their product development process and rebuild their menu architecture to support a scaling QSR estate. FIS Group delivered a full operational audit, menu architecture rebuild, repositioned core items and a year-long LTO programme, through to launch day training with the senior operations team.
FAQs
Two structural differences. First, sector specialism. Food and drink is the only sector we work in, where big four advisory covers every sector. The audit reads against the real commercial environment of food and drink rather than against a cross-sector consulting playbook, and the recommendations land as immediately actionable rather than needing translation into the sector first. Second, the senior interpretation layer. Our work is run by senior food and drink specialists throughout, where big four teams typically have analytical depth but less sector-operating experience. The combination matters at C-suite level because the credibility of the diagnostic depends on the seniority and the specialism of the people running it.
i360 is the only diagnostic-led service in the Challenge 02 set. Opportunity Mapping, Future Food Pipeline Builder and Platform and Territory Building are all forward-looking strategic mapping or development work. i360 audits the existing business across six dimensions to find where growth actually sits versus where it has been assumed, and then scopes the transformation work that follows. The other three services often follow i360 once the diagnostic surfaces the priority area for transformation work.
The audit phase typically runs ten to fourteen weeks from scoping call to integrated diagnostic readout. The transformation phase that follows is scoped against what the diagnostic surfaces, typically running three to twelve months depending on the depth and breadth of transformation work required. Compressed timelines are possible for diagnostic-only engagements where the transformation work is being run separately or internally. We give realistic timelines at proposal stage based on the brief and the audience for the work.
The audit is the diagnostic: six dimensions, integrated view, recommendations on where transformation should focus. The transformation work is the implementation: structured streams of work that deliver the changes the audit surfaced, from pipeline rebuilds to operational restructures to commercial repositioning. Most i360 programmes deliver both as one integrated engagement, but the audit can be commissioned alone where the client wants to take the transformation work internally or with another partner.
Yes. Diagnostic-only engagements are a common variant, particularly for clients who want the structured external picture but plan to take the transformation work internally or with existing strategic partners. We will tell you straight at scoping whether the diagnostic alone will land usefully for your context, or whether the integrated audit-plus-transformation structure delivers more value for your specific brief.
That is the question this service exists to answer. The structural feature of our methodology is that the diagnostic is built backwards from the transformation work it has to inform rather than as a standalone analytical exercise. Each diagnostic dimension is scoped against the specific decisions and transformation streams the audit has to support, which means the recommendations land at the level of specificity needed for the leadership team to act on them. Generic findings that fail the specificity test get reworked rather than shipped. We will tell you straight at the scoping stage if your brief is at risk of producing recommendations that are too generic to act on.
Yes, and this is a common use case. i360 work is run regularly for pre-investment evidence builds, post-acquisition integration planning, and PE portfolio reviews. The work is scoped for PE and investment committee scrutiny, with NDA protocols throughout, and the deliverable is built for the audience that has to act on it (investment committee, deal team, board) rather than for analytical internal consumption. Sometimes commissioned alongside other diligence work as one workstream inside a broader process.
A working readout session with the leadership team, an integrated diagnostic deliverable scoped for the C-suite audience, and (where the transformation work is included in the programme) the transformation roadmap with priority streams, sequencing and dependencies explicit. The deliverable is built for the audience that has to act on it: board, investment committee, leadership team, PE owner. Format is agreed at the start so the work lands in the meeting it needs to land in.
Yes. We run i360 programmes across the UK, mainland Europe, the US and the UAE, with sample structure and methodology adapted for each market. International i360 work has higher operational complexity than single-market work because the audit dimensions need to be scoped across markets and the transformation work needs to navigate cross-market organisational and operational realities. We give realistic scoping at proposal stage.
Project-based, scoped against the business scope, the depth of audit work across each dimension, the geographic coverage, the audience for the deliverable and the depth of transformation work included. Diagnostic-only single-market work is the lowest entry point; integrated multi-market audit-plus-transformation programmes are the highest. We give a clear, all-in quote at proposal stage with no hidden extras, and we will tell you straight if your budget will not buy the depth your brief requires.
Need the honest diagnostic picture before committing to transformation?
Tell us the business or businesses in scope, the strategic context, the audience for the diagnostic and the timeline pressures. We will tell you whether i360 is the right tool, what scope of audit makes sense, what transformation depth the brief implies and what it will cost. Twenty minutes on a call, under NDA from the start if the brief requires it.
Senior food and drink specialists throughout. Diagnostic depth, not partial audits. Audit and transformation in one programme. Specialists in food and drink, only.