Food and Beverage Voice of the Customer Étude de marché

The world of gastronomy is one of the most competitive sectors for businesses, and it is critical to have an edge for succeeding in this environment. Therefore, understanding customers’ preferences and dining experiences is paramount – and food and beverage voice of the customer market research serves as a vital tool for restaurateurs seeking to align their offerings with the evolving tastes and expectations of their clientele.

Qu’est-ce que l’étude de marché sur la voix du client dans le secteur des aliments et des boissons ?

L’étude de marché sur la voix du client dans le secteur des aliments et des boissons est une forme spécialisée d’étude de marché adaptée aux besoins et aux nuances de l’industrie alimentaire. Ces retours peuvent porter sur des sujets variés, depuis le goût et la présentation des plats, l'ambiance et le cadre de l'établissement, jusqu'à la qualité du service rendu.

En tirant parti des études de marché, les restaurateurs obtiennent une compréhension plus approfondie de leurs clients, ce qui leur permet d'adapter plus efficacement leurs offres et de garantir une expérience culinaire mémorable.

How Leading Brands Win at Food Beverage Voice of the Customer Market Research

Food and beverage leaders no longer treat consumer feedback as a post-launch audit. The brands gaining share treat Food Beverage Voice of the Customer Market Research as a continuous signal feeding R&D, claims strategy, and shelf execution.

The shift is structural. Reformulation cycles have compressed. Private label has narrowed the taste gap. Functional and clean label claims have multiplied. The winners separate themselves by hearing the consumer earlier, more often, and with sharper instruments than concept screens and post-launch trackers.

Why Food Beverage Voice of the Customer Market Research Drives Category Wins

The conventional VOC program in CPG looks like a quarterly tracker plus an annual U&A study. It captures lagging sentiment. It misses the moment a household reformulates its pantry around a new protein, a new sweetener, or a new occasion.

The leading approach pairs longitudinal panels with in-home use testing and central location tests calibrated to specific decision points. Reformulation work uses triangle tests and duo-trio tests to confirm parity. Optimization work uses JAR scales and penalty analysis to quantify which attributes drag liking. Premium positioning work uses QDA panels and temporal dominance of sensations to map flavor arcs second by second.

This is the gap between knowing consumers like a product and knowing why, when, and against which competitor it wins.

The Methods That Separate Leaders in Sensory and Concept Work

Three methodology pairings consistently produce decisions executives can act on.

Concept-product fit testing. Strong concepts fail because the liquid does not deliver the promise. Sequential monadic designs that present the concept, then blind the product, then re-rate after exposure quantify the gap. Nestlé, PepsiCo, and Unilever have built internal stage gates around this pairing because it isolates whether the loss sits in communication or formulation.

CATA and napping for positioning. Check-all-that-apply methodology and projective mapping reveal how consumers cluster a brand against competitors on attributes the brand team did not write into the brief. This is how a kombucha brand discovers it competes with sparkling water rather than soda, or how an oat milk discovers parity perception with dairy among flat white drinkers.

Accelerated shelf-life testing paired with consumer rejection thresholds. ASLT data alone tells the food scientist when oxidation begins. Pairing it with hedonic scaling tells the commercial team when consumers actually notice. The window between the two is where category leaders set code dates and distribution radius.

According to SIS International Research, the food and beverage clients who convert VOC programs into share gains share one operating habit: they integrate descriptive analysis panel data with consumer hedonic data in the same readout, rather than running sensory and consumer research as separate workstreams reporting to different functions.

Where Clean Label, Plant-Based, and Functional Claims Reward Sharper Listening

Three category dynamics make precision VOC work especially valuable right now.

Clean label consumer perception is non-linear. Removing an ingredient often improves stated preference and reduces blind liking. The plant-based protein sensory gap closes faster on texture than on flavor, which means texture analysis and TDS work yield higher returns than another flavor variant. Functional ingredient positioning lives or dies on whether the claim survives a CATA exercise against incumbents already owning the benefit space.

Brands like Chobani, Oatly, and Liquid Death have demonstrated that a sharply heard consumer insight, executed in pack and proposition, defeats larger marketing budgets. The insight is rarely surfaced by a tracker.

The Operating Model: From Episodic Studies to a Continuous VOC System

Episodic research produces episodic decisions. The brands compounding gains run a continuous system with three layers.

Source: SIS International Research

SIS International’s qualitative and quantitative engagements across food and beverage manufacturers indicate that programs combining ethnographic in-home observation with structured CLT waves identify reformulation opportunities six to twelve months earlier than tracker-only programs, particularly in categories with rapid private label encroachment.

What Fortune 500 Food and Beverage Leaders Get Right

Three patterns separate the operators who turn Food Beverage Voice of the Customer Market Research into P&L impact.

They specify the decision before the method. A study brief that names the SKU, the competitor, and the trade-off being made produces sharper output than a brief that asks for “consumer understanding.” The CLT design follows the decision, not the other way around.

They build a sensory-consumer bridge. Internal QDA panels are calibrated against consumer hedonic data quarterly. Drift between expert panel scores and consumer liking is a leading indicator of category share movement.

They listen against competitors, not just to their own consumers. Win/loss work in CPG is unusual but powerful. Recruiting lapsed buyers of a competitor reveals the switching trigger more reliably than asking loyal users why they stay.

The Framework: SIS Three-Lens VOC Model for Food and Beverage

SIS applies a three-lens model to structure VOC programs in food and beverage:

• The Sensory Lens — descriptive analysis, triangle and duo-trio tests, TDS, hedonic scaling. Confirms what the product delivers.
• The Occasion Lens — ethnographic and IHUT work mapping when, where, and with what the product is consumed. Identifies adjacency and cannibalization risk.
• The Claim Lens — CATA, napping, sequential monadic concept-product fit. Confirms whether the proposition lands against incumbents.

Programs that operate all three lenses, with shared readouts to R&D, marketing, and commercial, consistently outperform those that silo the work.

The Capability Edge

The Fortune 500 brands extending their lead in food and beverage have stopped buying VOC studies and started building VOC systems. They invest in the connective tissue between sensory science, consumer research, and commercial decision-making. They run faster CLTs, sharper concept-product fit tests, and ethnographic work that reaches the pantry.

This is what Food Beverage Voice of the Customer Market Research looks like when it is built to drive growth rather than report on it. SIS International has supported manufacturers across North America, Europe, and Asia in building exactly this kind of system, integrating CLTs, taste testing, and B2B retailer interviews into a single decision platform.

The brands that hear the consumer earliest, with the sharpest instruments, set the category agenda. The rest follow.

À propos de SIS International

SIS International propose des recherches quantitatives, qualitatives et stratégiques. Nous fournissons des données, des outils, des stratégies, des rapports et des informations pour la prise de décision. Nous menons également des entretiens, des enquêtes, des groupes de discussion et d’autres méthodes et approches d’études de marché. Contactez nous pour votre prochain projet d'étude de marché.