Get to Know OV: From Idea to Ingredient

It Starts With the Customer

A good development starts with understanding what the customer is trying to achieve.

Sometimes that means working from a very specific brief. At other times, the starting point might be a flavour, texture or application the customer wants to explore, or a challenge they are trying to solve.

Thomas Buehler, Head of Research & Development at OV Hans Kaspar, puts the customer at the centre of that process. For Thomas and his team, understanding what the customer needs comes first, even when finding the answer means rethinking some of our own hurdles along the way.

That flexibility matters. The first answer is not always the right one, and sometimes getting to the best solution means approaching the challenge differently.

Creating Together

For some projects, the best way to find that solution is to develop it together.

At OV Sweden, customer workshops are one way the NPD team brings customers directly into the development process. Starting with a brief, ideas can be developed, tasted and adjusted together, allowing direct feedback and several iterations to happen during the same session.

As Emma Nystrom, R&D Manager at OV Sweden, puts it:

“Co-creation with our customers is key. Together we make the best products.”

It turns product development into a conversation rather than a handover. We bring our product and technical expertise, the customer brings their knowledge of their product, market and ambition, and together we work towards something that fits.

Different Customers, Different Development Journeys

Creating a successful product is about more than finding a combination that tastes good. It needs to work for the customer and for the market it is going into.

For our B2B customers, that can mean understanding how an ingredient needs to perform in a particular application. An inclusion developed for ice cream faces different demands from one going into a baked product. Size, texture, appearance, processing conditions and functionality can all influence the final solution.

In Retail, the development journey can look different again, taking a blue sky idea or customer brief and developing it into something that can ultimately make its way onto the supermarket shelf.

Robert Simpson, Innovations Director at OV Glasgow, works across that spectrum. For B2B, he describes the aim as bringing product and trend expertise together to create a distinctive visual, taste and texture experience. In Retail, it is about working closely with customers to turn ideas into products that bring something new and a little fun to the category.

Different routes, but the same focus: understanding what the customer is trying to achieve and using the right expertise to help make it happen.

Specialist Knowledge Across OV

That expertise does not sit in just one place.

Our sites have built up specialist knowledge around the products, processes and applications they work with every day. One team may have the experience needed for a particular ingredient or process, while another may bring knowledge from a different application, market or customer challenge.

As we continue to connect our NPD teams across OV, we can make better use of that combined knowledge when an opportunity calls for it.

Andrew Lofthouse, Head of Development at OV UK, describes that balance well:

“We have a collection of highly skilled sites that are small enough to be flexible, small enough to care, but with the backing of a larger group that has the size to make the difference.”

That combination is an important part of how we want to work as one OV.

We can keep the specialist knowledge and flexibility that sits within our individual sites, while increasingly looking across the Group, involving the right people and asking: what is the best solution we can bring to this opportunity?

From Idea to Ingredient

Talking to our NPD leads also reinforced something else: innovation does not always mean inventing something completely new.

It might mean adapting an ingredient for a different application, finding a way around a technical challenge, exploring a trend through a new flavour or texture, taking a Retail idea towards the supermarket shelf or bringing together expertise from different parts of OV in a way we have not tried before.

The products may be different across our sites, and the route from idea to finished product may not always look the same. But there is a shared way of thinking behind the work.

Start with the customer. Bring the right expertise to the table. Make it. Test it. Learn from it. And keep developing until we have something that works.

That is what connects New Product Development across OV.

Come and Get to Know OV

At Fi Europe 2026, we will be bringing some of those ideas to life.

Our stand will bring together ingredients, applications and concepts developed using expertise from across OV, giving you a taste of what is possible when our different capabilities come together.

If you are heading to Frankfurt this November, come and meet our team, explore some of our latest concepts and talk to us about what we could create together.

Fi Europe 2026 | Frankfurt | 17–19 November | Stand 30C44