Jonny Bingham and David Jones are not household names. But across global FMCG, their fingerprints are almost everywhere.
From PepsiCo and Tesco to Oscar Mayer and Ichiban, the Nottingham-based duo have helped shape some of the industry’s biggest launches, working behind the scenes with major manufacturers, retailers and foodservice brands to develop products, build pipelines and spot opportunities others miss.
That raises an obvious question: how did two product developers from the East Midlands of the UK end up inside the innovation kitchens of some of the world’s largest food and drink companies?
For Bingham and Jones, the answer starts 13 years ago, when they launched their business with a single goal – to shake up FMCG new product development.
In the early days of their business, which is aptly named Bingham and Jones, that meant focusing almost entirely on supermarket ready meals. In an early interview, they said their work helped save one industry heavyweight up to £10m in food waste by creating a range with a shelf life of 21 days.
That’s a long way from the global remit they now have. Both came from rival ready-meal giants, Bakkavor and Greencore, but what began as a specialist NPD consultancy has since ballooned into something far broader.
“Our reputation’s really grown in the industry,” says Bingham. “Originally, we only worked in retail, really, so developing products for supermarkets. And now we do trends, we’ve got branding, we work across all parts of the supply chain.”
That broader offer has opened doors well beyond grocery shelves. In recent years, the pair have worked with quick-service restaurants (QSR), multinational manufacturers and a number of large listed businesses they cannot publicly name.
Companies are much more data driven, they’re taking fewer risks in NPD because they’re so focused on the data. I think that sometimes negatively limits a business
Jonny Bingham, Bingham and Jones
But within PepsiCo, for example, their brief stretched into foodservice. “We helped translate their snack business into QSR opportunities,” says Bingham. “Whether that’s KFC, Burger King, Subway, Popeyes, Pizza Hut – the lot. We work right the way across QSR, but in multiple countries.”
Their role, then, is not simply to come up with product ideas. It is to act as innovation translators: connecting trends, formats, channels and markets, then turning them into concepts that can work commercially.
There is another side to the business, too. As well as advising brands, the pair have also taken equity stakes in some of the companies they have helped build, says Jones.
Some of those investments remain confidential, but one they can talk about is Crackd, the plant-based egg alternative. “We came up with the concept, got the investment and we’re seven years in on the brand and just launched in America,” he adds.
Getting a product onto US shelves is one thing. Running an NPD operation across multiple markets is another. So why would manufacturers in the US, Germany or elsewhere turn to two consultants based in Nottingham when there are likely plenty of equivalents closer to home?
“It’s a really interesting point,” says Bingham. “But it’s because we do this from a different lens and our distance from the client’s home market does help. We make it our business to understand the market, but we’re also able to leverage innovation from all over the world because we have our finger on the pulse all the time.”
An outside NPD perspective
That outside-in perspective has become central to their pitch. They are removed enough from clients’ domestic markets to challenge assumptions, but sufficiently plugged into global trends to bring fresh ideas to the table.
And not every good idea is destined to become a blockbuster. Or at least not straight away and Bingham and Jones are okay with that.
Among the most exciting innovations they have seen in recent years, but which failed to break fully into the mainstream, are Bone Broth Brothers and a chicory coffee concept infused with functional ingredients aimed at the beauty-from-within consumer.
“Bone Broth Brothers is a sachet of concentrated bone broth, which you add hot water to and it gave you the enrichment of a collagen-based bone broth,” says Jones. “They taste delicious, are convenient and have brilliant branding. But the brand just didn’t have the pockets deep enough to be able to take it further.”
That, the pair suggest, is one of the enduring truths of FMCG innovation: success is not always about the quality of the concept. It comes down to distribution, funding and staying power.
And sometimes NPD is not really about the next launch at all.
With premium UK sausage brand, for example, Bingham and Jones worked on a longer-term pipeline of ideas designed to support the business as it expanded.
“It might not happen immediately from an NPD point of view,” says Jones. “But once the ideas and plans are on the table, they can get used eventually. And that certainly happened with the UK sausage brand.”
That longer view matters more than ever in a market where consumer behaviour, retailer expectations and category trends are shifting rapidly. It is also changing the way companies think about product development itself.
“There’s a lot of lazy NPD where they’re using AI as a base,” says Bingham, who argues artificial intelligence can only take product development so far.
For him, the danger is not simply over-reliance on technology, but what that does to the quality of the final product.
Jones shares the concern. For him, one of the biggest mistakes businesses are making is assuming AI can replace culinary expertise.
“Manufacturers are thinning the numbers of development chefs, but this is a culinary-based sector,” he says. “People have to understand flavour and AI can’t do that.”
The artificial intelligence critique
That critique taps into a wider tension now shaping food and drink innovation. The sector is under pressure to move faster, work more efficiently and lean harder on data. But creating products people genuinely want to buy still depends on instincts that cannot be fully automated.
Another force reshaping NPD is GLP-1. The rise of weight-loss drugs has already altered the conversation around food globally. And with cheaper, easier-to-use pill formats expected to widen access further, their impact on the industry could prove lasting.
“We’re looking at developments in this space for clients,” says Bingham. “It’s an opportunity and it’s going to be here for a long time. It’s resulting in the rise of snackification and that’s something clients are developing with us.”
Alongside GLP-1, they point to another structural shift: the growing expectation that almost every product must now come with a claim.
“We’re also going to see the continued rise of claims on food and drink,” says Jones. “Almost everything we develop now has to have a claim element.”
That marks a significant change from the NPD world they entered more than a decade ago.
The market told them no one would eat them, that it was stupid and a mistake, but they launched them and it’s still the brand’s bestseller
David Jones, Bingham and Jones
“In the past, we’d just develop a spaghetti bolognese that was really good and we’d have to make sure the finances were solid, the pasta texture was good and that it would last well on shelf,” Jones says. “Now it’s fibre, protein and the whole gamut. That’s a major change that will remain.”
If there is a risk in all of this, Bingham argues, it is that businesses can become too rational in the way they innovate.
“Companies are much more data driven, they’re taking fewer risks in NPD because they’re so focused on the data,” he says. “I think that sometimes negatively limits a business.”
As an example of why instinct still matters, Jones points back to the premium sausage brand which wanted to launch a chicken variety.
“The market told them no one would eat them, that it was stupid and a mistake, but they launched them and it’s still the brand’s bestseller,” he says.
For all the change in food and drink, then, the pair believe that the fundamentals of the future remain surprisingly simple. Consumers still want products that feel healthier, more functional and less compromising – but they also want them to taste good.
That, increasingly, is where the challenge lies.
The future of NPD will not be won by brands that simply chase data, bolt on claims or use AI to speed up the early stages of development. It will belong to those that can balance commercial rigour with creativity, functionality with flavour, and trend awareness with genuine product quality.
Or, as Bingham and Jones might put it: guilt-free food that tastes amazing.