The challenge
In own label and branded supply alike, the strongest category ideas tend to come from supplier and retailer thinking together rather than pitching at each other.
Valeo Foods understood this, and tasked us with hosting a series of retailer co-collaboration workshops for their key customers.
The sessions had to do two jobs at once: align with Valeo’s internal development processes, so anything generated could actually be progressed, and engage retailers as genuine stakeholders, unlocking new category opportunities through collaborative ideation rather than a conventional supplier presentation.
What we did
Inspiration days, retailer engagement, collaborative ideation, and trend and category insight.
How we did it
We supported the organisation and facilitation of inspiration and ideation days with Valeo’s key retail customers, with the focus placed on sweet and snacking and sessions delivered to Sainsbury’s, M&S and Tesco.
Each session was structured to earn the ideation before it began. We opened by sharing trends, category data and Valeo’s own capabilities, giving everyone in the room the same starting picture of where the category could go and what could credibly be made. Only then did the sessions move into idea generation. That sequencing matters with retailer audiences: buyers and category teams give their best thinking when they can see the evidence and the capability behind the invitation.
The aim was deliberately twofold. Yes, build a pipeline of concepts, but also inspire and engage the retailers themselves, strengthening relationships across their R&D teams. Commercial relationships are built in rooms like these, and a workshop that a retail team genuinely enjoys does more for a supplier than a year of routine range reviews.
The sessions delivered on both counts. They were fun, creative and highly collaborative, securing retailer buy-in while showcasing Valeo’s internal development framework, so every idea generated was already connected to a process that could carry it forward. All workshops were completed by early February, a timetable designed with the next step in mind: positioning Valeo to present fully developed concepts and prototypes back to the retailers by June.
What it delivered
A pipeline of collaboratively generated sweet and snacking concepts with three of the UK's most important retailers, built inside Valeo's own development framework rather than alongside it
Just as valuably, the workshops strengthened relationships across the retailers’ R&D teams and created shared ownership of the ideas, because a buyer who helped shape a concept in February is a far warmer audience for its prototype in June.
This kind of work sits right at the heart of how we think about the industry. Categories move fastest when manufacturers and retailers stop guessing what the other wants and start building together, with trends and category evidence on the table and great products as the shared goal. Sweet and snacking is a category full of joy, and getting Valeo and their customers ideating side by side, with prototypes already scheduled for the return visit, is collaborative innovation doing exactly what it should.
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