When the decision needs a defensible quantitative foundation, not just an informed view
U&A sits in the Discovery phase of any serious category or brand project. It answers the foundational questions: who is using the category, how and when, which brands are in and out of consideration, and what is actually driving choice.
Done well, it combines a qualitative stage – interactive workshops, digital forums or pop-up communities – to surface real consumer language and occasion behaviour, followed by quantitative measurement that gives you a defensible, projectable picture across the audiences that matter. Some clients come with strong existing qual. Others need to build it first. We work with what you have. The output is a robust baseline – for innovation, for brand strategy, for entering a new category, or for understanding why your position in an existing one isn’t where it should be.
Category usage and Brand awareness, consideration and use
Category usage
Penetration, frequency, occasion behaviour, who uses the category and when, how the usage is changing over time, what drives consumption frequency. The structural baseline most decisions sit on, scoped around food and drink occasions rather than around a generic category metric.
Brand awareness, consideration and use
Awareness, consideration, current use, lapsed use, rejection. The consumer’s brand repertoire and how the brand performs within it. The brand performance layer that matters for commercial decisions on brand health, brand stretch and competitive response.
Food and drink is all we do
We are not a generalist quantitative agency that takes the occasional food brief. Food and drink is the only sector we work in. Our senior researchers know the categories, the consumers, the occasions, the channels and the panel structures. Briefs land with people who get it on the first read, and the methodology is built specifically for the commercial reality of this sector, not against an FMCG template that treats food and drink as a single category statistic.
That focus is why we work with 11 of the UK’s top 40 food and drink brands.
Other ways to understand people, categories and trends
U&A is one of several innovation tools, each built to answer a different question. Some go deeper on people and what really drives their behaviour, others read the shape of a category and where the value sits, and others get you ahead of the trends moving the market. Depending on the brief, one of these might be the better starting point, or a stronger partner alongside the U&A work. We will point you to the right one on the scoping call.
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Segmentation
Structured consumer segmentation that produces actionable audience groupings, not descriptive profiles that gather dust.
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Consumer and Category Data Immersion
Structured deep-dives that immerse marketing, NPD, innovation and category teams in the category, consumer and the competitive landscape.
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Opportunity Mapping
Strategic mapping of where to play in food and drink.
View our case studies
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Onken
Onken needed a structured one-to-five-year innovation pipeline for the UK yoghurt category. FIS Group combined trend analysis, consumer qualitative research and a facilitated ideation workshop to generate ten big platforms, refined into a prioritised pipeline across four brand opportunities.
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Pilgrim's Europe
Pilgrim's Europe needed a future-ready portfolio strategy balancing core business strength with breakthrough innovation. FIS Group delivered a bespoke Future Food process combining trend mapping, consumer insight, cross-functional ideation and rigorous validation, producing a fully evidenced long-term innovation roadmap.
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Starbucks
Starbucks needed cross-market ideation around iconic bakery platforms for EMEA, with a focus on winning with Gen Z. FIS Group facilitated a structured innovation workshop with trend-led platforms, generating ten big concepts refined into illustrated, testable briefs now entering NPD pipelines across multiple markets.
FAQs
Syndicated U&A is built to a standard questionnaire and methodology, sold to multiple clients, and structured around the provider’s framework rather than your specific commercial question. Our work is bespoke: scoped around your audiences, your products, your occasions, your channels and the decision in front of you. It also usually pairs the quantitative baseline with a qualitative phase, which might take the form of workshops, interviews, forums or pop-up communities, so you get the numbers and the human story behind them. The base measurement is comparable; the commercial usefulness is structurally different. Some businesses use both: syndicated for an always-on industry baseline, bespoke U&A for the specific decisions where the standard framework misses what matters.
A U&A is a foundational baseline. It is typically run as a one-off or refreshed every two to three years, and it often combines quantitative measurement with a qualitative phase that explains the why behind the numbers. A tracking study is ongoing measurement of category or brand performance over time, usually quarterly and quant-led. The two work together: U&A delivers the deep baseline and the understanding around it, tracking keeps you visible on movement against that baseline. Many businesses commission U&A first, then set up tracking against it.
Eight to twelve weeks from scoping call to readout is the typical window for UK-only single-market work. Where a qualitative phase is included, whether that is workshops, interviews, forums or a pop-up community, it usually adds time at the front or back of the study, and we build it into the plan rather than bolt it on. Compressed timelines are possible where the sample is straightforward and the questionnaire is short. Larger international studies, complex audience boosts or detailed driver analysis can run to twelve to sixteen weeks. We give realistic timelines at proposal stage.
It depends on the question and the audiences you need to cover. A general UK category baseline typically needs 1,000 to 1,500 consumers, with targeted boosts on top for specific audiences such as heavy users, particular demographics or occasion-led cuts. The qualitative phase works differently: workshops, interviews and pop-up communities are scoped by depth rather than sample size, so a smaller, well-chosen group gives you the richness the numbers cannot. International work scales by market. We recommend the right combination for your brief at the scoping call rather than push a default.
Yes, where the sample design and methodology are properly scoped for the audience question. We will tell you straight at scoping what level of confidence the proposed sample supports and what depth of audience cut is statistically credible at that size. The quantitative side gives you the robustness for the decision; the qualitative phase gives you the reasons behind it, which is often what makes an investment case land internally. We do not over-claim, and we will recommend a larger sample if the decision genuinely requires it.
Yes. Most of our U&A work includes custom modules scoped to the specific commercial question: brand health diagnostics, driver analysis, concept screening, segmentation foundation work, occasion deep-dives, and qualitative modules such as workshops, interviews, forums or pop-up communities that sit alongside the quantitative work. The modular design is one of the things that separates bespoke U&A from syndicated, and it is built into the methodology step rather than added as an afterthought.
Yes. Most of our U&A work includes custom modules scoped to the specific commercial question: brand health diagnostics, driver analysis, concept screening, segmentation foundation work, occasion deep-dives, and qualitative modules such as workshops, interviews, forums or pop-up communities that sit alongside the quantitative work. The modular design is one of the things that separates bespoke U&A from syndicated, and it is built into the methodology step rather than added as an afterthought.
Yes. We routinely integrate U&A primary data, both the quantitative findings and the qualitative insight, with internal CRM and sales data, with the major syndicated panel sources and with our own proprietary data. The integrated cross-source picture is far stronger than U&A alone, and most serious commercial decisions in food and drink benefit from the triangulation. This is often handled as a separate Data Mining engagement alongside the U&A.
Usually not. A well-scoped U&A is a foundational baseline that should hold for two to three years in most categories. Where the category is shifting fast, or the business is going through a major change, a more frequent refresh or a lighter qualitative top-up, such as a short burst of interviews or a pop-up community, can keep the picture current between full studies. Tracking is the right tool for ongoing measurement. We will tell you straight what cadence fits your category.
Project-based, scoped against sample size, audience complexity, the methodology, geographic scope, the depth of analysis and whether a qualitative phase is included. Single-market UK baseline U&A is the lowest entry point; complex multi-market work with audience boosts, detailed driver analysis and a full qualitative programme is 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.
Got a commercial decision that needs a defensible quantitative foundation?
Tell us the commercial question, the audiences that need to be covered, the brands and occasions in scope, and the timeline. We will tell you whether U&A is the right tool, what sample structure makes sense, what methodology choices the brief implies and what it will cost. Twenty minutes on a call. No qualifying call before the qualifying call.