General Mills developed Nature Valley Bistro Cups oatmeal to be made in Keurig single-serve brewing machines. They tested early prototypes with employees and conducted a "Lemonade Stand" demonstration in two stores, selling the product and gathering feedback. This helped them refine flavors and packaging based on direct consumer input. Nature Valley Bistro Cups launched on Amazon, becoming an instant success as the first hot oatmeal available for single-serve brewers. General Mills credits their open innovation approach and willingness to interact directly with consumers throughout the product development process for the product's success.

1. General Mills: Open Innovation Works
General Mills is one of the first companies to develop foods for single-serve
brewing machines
February 16, 2015
Photo caption: General Mills is one of the first companies to develop
foods for single-serve brewing machines
A good idea is often powerful in and of itself, but backing it up with
genuine consumer enthusiasm can make it a reality. General Mills says
its new Nature Valley Bistro Cups oatmeal—which can be made in a
Keurig machine—is a “true testament to perseverance, belief in a
product and leveraging open innovation to bring a first of its kind product
to market quickly.”
Dena Strehlow is an Innovation Entrepreneur and 20-year R&D
technology manager at General Mills.
“At General Mills, our approach to open innovation allows us to leverage
the many advantages nimble small companies use in their speed to
market,” she says. “Many times these small companies rely on intuition
to launch a great idea. The Nature Valley Bistro Cups is a perfect
example of how General Mills drew on its internal expertise and tapped
in to external expertise to launch a truly unique product for consumers.”

2. Time is Right
Strehlow says General Mills had dabbled in hot oatmeal products in the
early 90’s with Undercover Bears and Total Oatmeal Swirlers. The
products were simple and convenient: just add hot water and enjoy.
Fast-forward 20-plus years and the need for a convenient and nutritious
breakfast still exists. However, time-strapped consumers were looking
for new ways to get the quick breakfast they needed.
Strehlow says the time was right to revisit the possibility of bringing back
hot cereal to the product line—but this time in an entirely new and
relevant way. Research shows that more than 20 million U.S.
households own a single-serve beverage brewer, which busy consumers
use to maximize their mornings and make coffee on the fly. However,
consumers still desire a healthy breakfast, which was still often going by
the wayside due to the morning rush.
“Many consumers spend $2 to $3 for a cup of oatmeal from the drive-
thru with their cup of coffee in the morning,” says Strehlow. “This product
would make having coffee and oatmeal more convenient, more
affordable, and bring more utility to a kitchen appliance many consumers
already own. With more and more people using single-serve brewers, it
only made sense for us to start looking at how consumers could use this
appliance not just for beverages, but for food, too.”
Strehlow says she first partnered with her business team to sit down with
a small group of 10 to 20 employees to talk about the concept, generate
feedback, and sample some early prototypes. She quickly learned that
many were already using their machine’s hot water for other things.
Strehlow says this early feedback “helped pivot” and iterate the product
to be more tailored to consumer habits and preferences.
Using the company’s open innovation network and tools, Strehlow says
she next connected with a leading flavor developer to create the optimal
spice and flavor recipe; and then she reached out to external supply
chain partners to initiate conversations about packaging options.
Soon, the team quickly came up with an oatmeal prototype and went out
to learn from consumers.
Learning with Consumers

3. General Mills says it set up a “Lemonade Stand” in two Minneapolis-area
retail outlets to demo and sell the product. This would help the team
gauge consumer interest in oatmeal made with a single-serve brewer.
“Our belief is the best way to know if we have a good idea is to find out if
real consumers will spend real money on a real product,” says Strehlow.
“While we continue to use our traditional methods for many of our new
product launches, our new ‘sell-to-learn’ methods have taught us many
valuable lessons and best practices.”
Strehlow and the team knew they were on to something when huge
crowds started to gather around the demo stand.
General Mills says its “Lemonade Stand” results armed the team with
early experimentation data, better consumer insights and huge learnings
that helped direct packaging, flavor offerings, price and product
placement.
General Mills launched the product on Amazon.com and quickly gained
distribution with other major retailers.
Strehlow says that for a large company like General Mills, this consumer
interaction represents a paradigm shift. While entrepreneurs and
smaller companies often rely on face-to-face consumer feedback to drive
their new product launches at every stage of development, larger
corporations like General Mills typically follow a traditional, gated
process and use analytic or qualitative tools to determine which new
ideas will be pursued and which will be tabled.
“By quickly creating product prototypes and iterating directly with
consumers throughout product development, and experimenting more in
the marketplace to obtain real feedback directly from both our
consumers and our customers, we are able to deliver more remarkable
products to meet consumer demands,” she adds.
Behind the Scenes

4. Brian Tockman is senior manager for New Business Models at General
Mills 301 Inc.
“Being first to market certainly has benefits, but it also comes with the
responsibility to educate consumers,” he notes. “Having our team
interact directly with consumers in a real-word environment greatly
improved our insight and intuition on the project–that’s how we prefer to
work because we feel we can be smarter and deliver products that better
match what consumers want.”
General Mills was one of the first companies to launch a food product for
a single-serve brewer and Nature Valley Bistro Cups is still the only hot
oatmeal available for the Keurig. The product proved to be a natural fit
for the Nature Valley brand. That partnered with the growing business
and adoption of single-serve brewer machines resulted in a successful
launch of a product that was an instant hit with consumers (the product
sold out on Amazon the first day).
Since launching its open innovation strategy, General Mills Worldwide
Innovation Network (G-WIN) in 2007, General Mills says it has
challenged its teams to be more connected throughout the innovation
process—both externally with outside partners and suppliers as well as
internally among divisions and cross-functional teams.
General Mills Worldwide Innovation Network actively seeks partners who
can help deliver breakthrough innovation. Visit
www.generalmills.com/win to learn more about the General Mills
Worldwide Innovation Network.