Agribusiness: Approach success by design

Matthijs Siljee, a professor at Massey University's college of creative arts.

Understanding other cultures is key to New Zealand making its food attractive to different markets around the world and to boosting our export earnings, according to a top industrial designer.

Matthijs Siljee, a Dutch professor at Massey University's college of creative arts believes selling more of the same thing won't achieve the Government's goal of tripling the value of food exports by 2025. "Anyone can see it is madness to try and pump out even more milk powder. That is not where the value is going to come from."

Instead he says the country needs to take a design-led approach to developing new food products.

While scientists can figure out different ways to develop a product such as isolating a protein which helps yoghurt taste better. He says it is good product design that will help that product be selected by consumers off a supermarket shelf in Singapore when they are faced by a raft of other choices.

Siljee says consumers are impacted by every detail -- from how it appears on the shelf to what it feels like to unwrap and taste and smell it.

"It's like a fabric you want to feel it and immerse yourself in it."

But Siljee says it's not always easy to nail down what appeals to certain consumers -- especially when it comes to other countries. "You cannot make assumptions ... You have to know the culture inside out to know what is wrong or right for a brand."

In New Zealand Siljee says one brand which has got it right is the home brand concept.

"In conversations with people it is seen as crass, dowdy or nasty but that is part of its success. We want to get it plain and straight and cheap. It is a very clever, deliberate type of branding.

Siljee says when it comes to food one recent success is Zespri's special yellow spoon which it sells packaged with its gold Kiwifruit into international markets.

"People buy the fruit and keep the spoon and it provides a semi-reminder. It is designed specially for that fruit and is part of the branding strategy. That is an example of how design works."

Massey is undertaking design work through Open Lab, part of its college of creative arts. One of the areas it is working on is a knife to go with butternut squash sold into the Korean and Asian markets in their off season. Butternut is difficult to cut safely and that is one of the main things that turns consumers off, so work has begun on designing a knife to be sold alongside.

Siljee says the best way to learn about a market is to connect with the people who live there. "We need to immerse ourselves with people from those markets."

That's a big challenge when it comes to a place like China which has so many regional language and cultural difference. Siljee says there are no short-cuts. "Nothing is cheap. We have to be a world leader in understanding cultures.