According to the competitive intelligence experts at Infiniti, ‘The battle for the gourmet food marketplace is not new. What is new is the pace and number of disruptors.
Today, consumers are swiftly adopting a plethora of new brands, platforms, and retail models available to them, from brand cafes to food subscription services. These innovative models are expanding at such a rapid pace that in just a few years we can expect the global food industry to look nothing like it does today. Let’s take a look at a couple of challenges that gourmet food industry players across the globe face:
Doorstep convenience: The bounty of new community-sourced and prepared meal solutions poses a huge challenge to traditional gourmet food companies. This is because consumers can easily avoid retailer doors and instead have food delivered directly to their fridge or pantry whenever they choose.
Direct-to-consumer models: In a world where consumers want what they want, when they want it, with speed, major food players are moving to cut out the middleman. 
Additionally, consumers can now buy another food manufacturer’s products, from cereal to sandwiches, at any downtown cafe. This is one of the major challenges for gourmet food industry players.
Business Issues
- The client: A renowned gourmet food industry player
The client – a gourmet food industry major based out of the United States approached Infiniti to engage in a competitive intelligence study that would help them benchmark the global food industry. Additionally, the client wanted to perform a comprehensive analysis of the customers and major competitors and gain strategic market insights to establish a strong presence in the global food industry. With the help of Infiniti’s competitive intelligence study, the client also wanted to understand the risk appetite of the customers.
How Can Competitive Intelligence Help Gourmet Food Industry Players?
Competitive intelligence solutions assist businesses to gather and analyze information to help make better-informed decisions. Additionally, competitive intelligence solutions help companies in the gourmet food industry space to gather and analyze the business performance of their peers. This helps companies deduce strategies to maximize revenue potential. Furthermore, Infiniti’s 
competitive intelligence solutions help companies evaluate the strengths and roadblocks of the competitors and identify signals of disruptions in the gourmet food industry.
Summary of our competitive intelligence solution?
Client Journey
To help the client assess industry-specific challenges, Infiniti’s market intelligence experts developed a widespread proprietary database that consisted of information given by industry experts, end-users, key opinion leaders, and trade associations in the global food industry space. 
To further help the gourmet food industry client establish their presence in the market, Infiniti’s experts offered a robust SWOT analysis engagement.
Solution Benefits and the Business Impact
With the help of Infiniti’s competitive intelligence solution, the gourmet food industry client gained industry-specific insights for benchmarking the global gourmet food industry. The competitive solution offered also helped the client identify lucrative markets and offered suggestions on a differentiated set of products which helped them dynamically fine-tune their marketing efforts to gain a competitive advantage over counterparts in the industry. The gourmet food industry client was further able to understand and effectively address their sales approach problems.
The Future of Gourmet Food
With a plethora of new models, the gourmet food marketplace has truly changed already. Expect the pace and number of variations to grow as companies experiment to find their place in the ecosystem and fulfill consumer demands. Additionally, with millions of dollars being invested and thousands of startups all racing to resolve things customers love and hate, the future of the gourmet food marketplace will look very different.
A must-read case study for strategy specialists and decision makers looking to develop an understanding of the food industry
