Altitude: If you want to delight consumers, give them experiences, not products

The next speaker - Dan Ostrower, CEO at design and innovation firm Altitude​ - urged R&D teams to “innovate beyond the package​” and think more holistically about the experience they are trying to deliver, not the product itself.

If you think about the end goal (to make a hole) rather than the tool that currently creates it (a drill), you might think up something radical, instead of inventing a slightly better drill bit, he said. (If Apple was just thinking about creating a better CD player, it wouldn’t have come up with the iPod.)

Innovate beyond the package ​

Keurig, meanwhile, is a great example of this philosophy in the food and beverage sphere, he said, while the Margaritaville mixed drinks maker (make your own cocktails at the push of a button) also meets consumer demands for a high-quality, but fun experience when making cocktails for friends or parties.

The Ball FreshTECH home canning machine, meanwhile, enables Millennials to feel warm, fuzzy and nostalgic by doing something their parents or grandparents did, in a convenient way.

He left delegates with a video (see below) showing what might be possible if you think beyond the package, the box and everything else in your comfort zone, and try to create a complete end-to-end experience for consumers looking to throw the perfect party - with cocktails they can make themselves.  Click HERE​ for full details of the 'connected cocktail' concept.

Click HERE​ to read about day TWO of the food summit, which was organized by World Trade Group.