The specialist food and drink consultancy people actually want to work with

A talented team of insight, innovation and product experts; many of whom have lived inside the businesses we now advise; who share a genuine, deep passion for food and drink that goes well beyond calling themselves a foodie. Three UK locations. Clients across Europe, the US and the UAE. Food and drink, only.

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Specifically focused on food and drink

FIS Group brings together decades of food and drink experience under one unified brand. We are insight specialists, innovation consultants and product testing experts, and we work with food and drink businesses that want confident, evidence-led answers to the questions and challenges that actually matter.

Many of our team have worked client-side. We know what it feels like to sit on the other side of the table with a brief to deliver, a timeline to hit and a budget that has to earn its keep. That shapes how we work, how we scope, how we report, and what we think a good piece of consultancy actually looks like.

Strategic insight, innovation and product testing are run as an integrated model rather than as separate departments handing projects between them. Fieldwork at scale is delivered through our dedicated in-house NOTED Fieldwork brand, with purpose-built facilities in Bury St Edmunds and Birmingham along with partner sites across the UK and beyond. Keeping fieldwork within the group gives us full control and visibility over quality, recruitment and operations – and keeps us close to the reality of how consumers actually think, feel and behave.

11 of the UK’s top 40

We work with 11 of the UK’s top 40 food and drink brands.

Mission Kitchen, London

Our creative hub in the heart of London, our head office in Cambridge, and dedicated NOTED Fieldwork operations in Bury St Edmunds and Birmingham for fieldwork at scale.

Global reach

Projects across the UK, Europe, the US and the UAE.

Get to know FIS Group

How we work

Five principles we hold the work to. Short because they should be.

  • Say it straight.

    We get to the point and say what we mean. No jargon, no hiding behind language.

  • Make it count.

    Every piece of work should help a client make a better decision, invest more wisely or move faster.

  • Know the industry, not just the method.

    We are food and drink specialists, not generalists. We have lived inside the businesses we now advise.

  • Bring something they have not thought of.

    We work across sectors and bring cross-pollinated thinking and provocation.

  • Be easy to work with.

    Organised, communicative, straightforward. Clients should feel like working with us is a pleasure, not a chore.

Read our approach in full

The people you will actually work with

Senior from day one. Named on every proposal.
In the room at every readout. No junior handover, no anonymous team.

Meet the Team

Where we work

  • Mission Kitchen London

    Mission Kitchen London

    Our central London base at Mission Kitchen in Nine Elms. This is the home of our innovation team, with a state of the art development kitchen, workshop space. This entrepreneurial hub houses over 100 start up & food & drink SMEs, right in the heart of new Covent garden market.

  • Bury St Edmunds

    Bury St Edmunds

    Our dedicated fieldwork operations run under the NOTED Fieldwork brand, with purpose-built facilities at Bury St Edmunds (East of England) and Birmingham (Midlands). NOTED Fieldwork delivers the recruit, viewing, kitchen and group infrastructure that makes consumer fieldwork at scale possible, with its own dedicated team and operational specialism.

  • Kings Heath Birmingham

    Kings Heath Birmingham

    Purpose-built testing centre in the heart of Kings Heath high street. Our state-of-the-art facility is multi-purpose and built for high-volume testing, with the space and flexibility to handle large consumer samples and several projects running at once. It is our Birmingham base, and it is set up to keep fieldwork moving at pace without losing quality.

Projects across the world

FIS Group runs projects across the UK, Europe, the US and the UAE. Wherever the project sits, the standards travel with us. Same talented team, same approach, same commitment to recommendations you can actually act on.

See Our Global Reach

The partners behind the work

Where specialist expertise sits outside the core FIS Group team, we work through a small number of trusted strategic partners. Named, integrated into the work, and chosen because they are the best in their specific space.

The Food People (TFP)

Our trend foresight partner, co-hosting the quarterly Future Food Trends webinar series with FIS Group. Charles Banks and the TFP team are one of the most respected trend voices in UK food and drink, and the partnership extends our trend foresight capability through their specialist trend research infrastructure.

And others

The FIS Group partnership model includes additional specialist partners across regulatory, technical, manufacturing and channel-specific work. The full partner list and the partnership philosophy live on the Partnerships sub-page.

Jump straight to the work

If you arrived here from a service page and want to head back to a specific challenge, the six challenge areas across the food and drink commercial cycle are below.

FAQ

FIS Group is a specialist insight and innovation consultancy for the food and drink industry. We bring together strategic insight, innovation consultancy and product testing under one unified brand, with dedicated fieldwork operations delivered through our NOTED Fieldwork sub-brand. Find out more about how we work on our Our Approach page.

FIS Group is the unified group brand bringing together Cambridge Market Research, Good Sense Research and DEFINE – legacy businesses with decades of food and drink experience between them. Strategic insight, innovation and product consultancy run as an integrated model under one team. NOTED Fieldwork operates as our dedicated fieldwork sub-brand with purpose-built facilities at Bury St Edmunds and Birmingham. Find out more on our Our Story page.

NOTED Fieldwork is FIS Group’s dedicated fieldwork sub-brand, operating product testing facilities at Bury St Edmunds (East of England) and Birmingham (Midlands) with a dedicated team highly experienced in recruitment, fieldwork and project management and operational excellence ensuring that we get the right people testing products in the right way. The NOTED Fieldwork operation runs the infrastructure for FIS Group product testing and for other research businesses in the industry. NOTED Fieldwork has its own website for fieldwork-specific bookings and information. Visit the NOTED Fieldwork Website here.

FIS Group is an independent UK-headquartered business, bringing food and drink insight and innovation together under one roof. We are not part of a holding company network or a global research group, which is one of the reasons we can stay specialist and focused. NOTED Fieldwork operates as a fully integrated sub-brand within the FIS Group structure.

FIS Group has its culinary creative space at Mission Kitchen in central London and its head office in Cambridge. NOTED Fieldwork operates from purpose-built facilities at Bury St Edmunds and Birmingham, delivering the fieldwork infrastructure for FIS Group projects and direct fieldwork clients.

Yes. We run projects across the UK and globally – Europe, the US and the UAE – with the same talented team and the same passion behind every brief. Most of our projects have an international element somewhere in them.

Where specialist expertise sits outside the core FIS Group team, we work through a small number of trusted strategic partners. G Force extends innovation capability where their specialism applies. The Food People (TFP) extends trend foresight capability, including through the co-hosted Future Food Trends webinar series. Additional partnerships cover regulatory, technical, manufacturing and channel-specific work. The Partnerships sub-page covers the full model in depth.

Got a brief that needs specialists?

Tell us what your challenge is. We will get the right people on a call who will tell you straight whether we are the right fit, what the right shape of project looks like and how quickly we can move.

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