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D. H. MOSKOWITZ, Moskowitz Jacobs Inc., 1025 Westchester Avenue, White Plains, NY 10604

The fuzzy front end refers to the early development stage where there are many options from which the developer and marketer can choose. The key issues at this stage are to identify the features of the offering, to create the optimal offering from the combination of its features, and then to present this new offering in the best possible way. The constraints are that, all too often, the foodservice professional does not know, and the customer cannot articulate, what in fact the customer actually wants (although the customer may know it when he sees it).

This presentation demonstrates how the researcher working with consumers and with foodservice professionals can identify / develop new product and service ideas relatively quickly using a combination of three factors: a source of raw materials (concept elements); an enabling technology (the computer, experimental designs); and integrating instruments (the customer, the food service professional, respectively). This paper shows the sequence of activities needed, the inputs generated, and the resulting outputs.