20 November - How to Adapt Your Product to the UK Market (Family Recipe or Foreign Trend)

November 20, 2025

⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠Click here to download The Flavour Blueprint⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠, a free guide based on the process I use with my clients to fix underperforming food and drink products.

"Just take the emotion out of your product", I know, easier said than done, right? This is your baby. Maybe it's your grandma's recipe, a family heirloom passed down through generations, or you've spotted a massive gap in the UK market with a trend from another country.

There's always going to be emotional attachment, and that's completely normal. But here's the reality: if you want to succeed in the UK, you may have to adapt to the British palate, and that means compromise.

I've spoken with SO many food and drink founders who brought their culture into the products they wanted to sell in the UK: Sri Lankan, Jamaican, North African, and more. They all started with family recipes, and they all told me the same thing: they realised very quickly they needed to adapt to reach a wider audience.

In this episode, you'll discover:

🌟 Why you can't completely remove emotion (and the frustration that comes with product development), but you MUST stay objective

🌟 The brilliant strategy one Jamaican drink business owner used to target both audiences

🌟 How to be crystal clear on who your target consumers are (not your family, not your friends, not yourself)

🌟 Why you need to ask your target consumers directly for their opinion, and here's the hard part, actually LISTEN to their feedback

🌟 The compromises you might have to make on flavours that are very familiar to you (but unfamiliar to your UK consumers)

If you're bringing a family recipe or a trend from another country to the UK market, this episode will show you how to keep your target consumers front and centre and adapt your product so thousands of loyal customers keep buying it again and again.

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If you want to design food or drink products that taste perfect for your consumers, hit those repeat purchases, and see your sales go through the roof — there’s no luck or miracle involved. You need a flavour strategy.

👋 Hi, I am Manon Galizzi, a food scientist and flavour expert with over 10 years in the food industry.

In each episode, I share what I’ve learned from helping food and drink brands create new products from scratch, choose the right flavour direction, or fix products that just aren’t performing.

Because flavour isn’t just a nice-to-have — it’s the number one reason people buy.

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Episode Transcript

[00:00.1]
If you're a food and drink brand and your product isn't performing the way it should, maybe the sales have slowed down or the review. Keep mentioning that the taste is not that great. I have created something to help you. It's called the Flavour Blueprint. It's a free guide that based on the process I use with my clients to fix their underperforming products.

[00:18.4]
If you're tired of guessing and you want clarity before another batch, download your free flavour blueprint. If you want to create food or drink product that actually tastes amazing, get the repeat purchases and see your sales go up.

[00:33.8]
You need a flavour strategy. I'm Manon Galizzi, food scientist and flavour expert and in this podcast I share what I've learned from helping food and drink brands create new products from scratch. Choose the right flavour direction or fix the flavours that are not working. Welcome to another of my 30 day podcast challenge how to adapt the flavour profile to the UK market.

[00:57.1]
Whether you are taking a family recipe or trend from another country, you may have to adapt to the UK palate for that. You have to take the emotion out of your food and drink product to succeed. And I can only imagine how hard is.

[01:13.3]
It's very easy for me to say just take the emotion out. That's easy. I know it is harder than it sounds and I don't think you can completely remove the emotion from the your idea coming to life. This is your baby again.

[01:30.0]
You may have a strong emotional link to this product. It may be your grandma or your granddad recipe, maybe a family heirloom that has been passed on to generation to generation or maybe you see a huge gap in the market.

[01:46.2]
You see this trend, this product and there is nothing like it in the uk. So you're very, very passionate about. You think this is a great idea, great product and you should definite come and succeed in the uk. So there is always this emotional attachment which is completely normal because this is your baby, this is your product, this is your idea, this is your joy and proud.

[02:10.2]
So I'm not saying you shouldn't feel any emotion at all and you will definitely feel some frustration and some anger through the product development process. But it's just all part of the journey. You have just to be as objective possible.

[02:27.5]
You have to keep your target consumers front and center. So I spoke with a lot of food and drink founders who brought their culture into the product they wanted to sell in the uk. So there was one that was Sri Lankan, Jamaican, North African and much more and they often started with this family recipe.

[02:50.2]
And they were all telling me that they realized very quickly that they needed to adapt to the British palette to reach a wider, audience. And one of the drink business owner, I talked to, she actually created a range of her, Jamaican shots starting from the low level of spice to Jamaican level of spice.

[03:14.5]
Because her target consumers were both people who were used to the Jamaican flavours here. They were Jamaican born or British people with a Jamaican background. And the second were the level of spice to complete beginners like me who I'm French.

[03:32.4]
So my level of spice is very, very low. And I have never tried Jamaican products until I came to the uk. So this is flavours that are very new to me. But I thought the idea was great because she knew exactly who were her target consumers.

[03:51.7]
She wanted to target a wide audience. That's why she had different type of product. So the best way is to be crystal clear on who your target consumers are and ask them directly their opinion.

[04:07.3]
And the most difficult thing, listen to their feedback and tweak your product until is ready to launch. And you may have to compromise on some of the flavours that are very familiar to you. You have to remember you're not creating a food or drink product for your family, your friends or yourself.

[04:28.8]
If you want to succeed and get thousands of loyal customers that keep on buying your product, you have to please them, your target consumers and no one else. So be crystal clear on who your target consumers are, ask their opinion, listen to your feedback and tweak your recipe.

[04:52.5]
Be as much as objective as possible if you want your drink or food business to succeed. As always, I hope this episode was helpful. You can find all of my tips around tasting flavours and product development in my newsletter.

[05:08.3]
So don't forget to subscribe and I will see you tomorrow for another episode. Bye.

20 November - How to Adapt Your Product to the UK Market (Family Recipe or Foreign Trend)

Download The Flavour Blueprint