• by Emily Burg , April 6, 2007

General Mills has launched a Worldwide Innovation Network (WIN) under which it seeks external business partners with which to develop new food products and technologies to complement its existing brands and businesses.

But this isn't just an expanded call for Pillsbury Bake-Off recipe contest entries. WIN is looking for patented or patent-pending products and technologies from inventors and small companies it can bring in house, brand, and introduce into the marketplace on an accelerated timeline.

"A benefit to General Mills' open innovation is speed to market," explains General Mills spokeswoman Kirstie Foster. "Working with an external partner or taking a product that is already developed and branding it with one of our brands will allow us to bring it to market much more quickly than if we developed it and built it in our supply chain to ourselves. In some cases we can bring a product to market in six months that otherwise would've taken two years."

Business categories of interest include baking products, cereal, frozen vegetables, pastries, pizzas and snacks, refrigerated and frozen dough, shelf-stable meals, meal kits, soups and side dishes, snack bars, fruit snacks, salty snacks, and yogurt and soy beverages. Prospective partners can contact the company online at generalmills.com/win or by calling a special hotline. There, submissions will be evaluated by several criteria, including uniqueness, expansion or growth potential--and of course, its ability to enhance General Mills' existing brands.

"Extending our brands has always been key to our innovation strategy, and our open innovation strategy will help accelerate that," Foster says.

The idea for WIN was two years in the making, Foster told Marketing Daily. "Two years ago, the R&D division at General Mills formed an open innovation team. That team has traveled the globe, going to food trade and technology shows looking for technologies and ready-to-go products that could fit in to existing product lines."

The first product launched by the innovation team, Foster says, are two frozen pasta entrees developed in partnership with New York and Food Network celebrity chef Mario Batali that will be sold in the club channel, at Sam's Club, Costco and BJ's Wholesale.

"This summer, we are planning on launching additional productions that we can't cite at this time for competitive reasons, but one is a yogurt and another is a fruit snack, both developed in partnership with external companies," Foster says.

Marcia Mogelonsky, senior analyst at Mintel International in Chicago, thinks WIN is a clever move for General Mills. "They are jump-starting their idea process by going to people who have been experimenting for years and then buying their ideas," she says.

"General Mills is eliminating the most difficult part of the innovation process by looking outside the company for fresh ideas from areas they may not have looked at before," Mogelonsky says.

"It's hard and expensive to keep having innovation session after innovation session. [WIN] enables General Mills to outsource a part of the creative process and what you end up with - your starting point - is what a lot of people spend days working on."

Foster says that what General Mills thinks is most unique about WIN is the program's focus in other food companies as well as its interest outside the food industry altogether. "[This is] different than what we've done in the past - a potential partner is not limited to the food industry. Any technology or solution that can help us grow would be of interest to General Mills."

In terms of the company's growth, Foster said that WIN is designed to enhance the company's consistently solid performance. General Mills' sales grew 6% in the third quarter of 2006, its last reported quarter, and the company has raised earnings guidance twice during the fiscal year.

"We are very happy with our performance and are seeing incremental sales through products," Foster says. "We are looking at the innovation network to sustain and continue this growth for the future."