Most of what gets called innovation in CPG is actually invention.

GLP-1 is quietly rewriting the rules of food product development. Rania Abou Samra, Chief RD&I Officer at Lesaffre, explains what that means for CPG brands, and why fermentation is the next frontier in protein.

Rania started out as a clinical dietitian and did her PhD on appetite regulation, researching GLP-1 years before the rest of the world had heard of it. She went on to lead R&D at Nestlé, working on probiotics and the microbiome, and now heads research, development and innovation at Lesaffre, a business built entirely around fermentation.

In this 35 minute conversation with Karim Choueiri and Tom Gill, she covers the difference between an invention and an innovation, why no focus group could ever have produced the iPhone, the "two in a box" model that pairs an R&D lead with a marketer on every project, and how she took a high protein nutrition product from a patient insight all the way to the shelf.

We also get into what happens to a food portfolio when consumers can only manage two or three spoons at a sitting, whether food can stimulate GLP-1 naturally without pharma, and why fermentation may solve the carbon problem that plant protein never quite did.