Case Study: Major Grocery Retailer achieves rapid, consumer-driven product innovation with GutCheck

How a Major Grocery Retailer Leveraged Design Thinking and Agile Market Research to Build a Fast and Effective Innovation Process

A major grocery retailer’s consumer insights (CI) team, responsible for innovating private‑label brands, was challenged to adopt design thinking and engage target consumers earlier and more often—yet do so within an aggressive six‑week timeframe. Their goals were to embed design thinking into future research, shorten timelines, and ensure new ideas mapped to clear unmet consumer needs.

They partnered with GutCheck to run an agile online Exploratory Research Group of 28 Millennial and Gen X parents who own single‑serve machines to evaluate four family‑focused single‑serve cup concepts. With five days to recruit and nine days to report, the team quickly iterated through examine→immerse→ideate→test&refine, gaining actionable feedback that narrowed the concept slate, eliminated the hot‑milk line, prioritized chocolate flavors, and moved innovation cycles from months to weeks or days.