Kraft Europe Future Expedition

Leading manufacturer of food.

Fotos Movie

In January 2010 about 80 managers from Kraft Europe came to Biel/Bienne for a three day BrainStore Future Expedition.

The goal: find out where Kraft Europe would stand in 2020 and which roadmap would be necessary to reach the defined goals.

The expedition took more than 120 participants on a journey of exploration. What does the future mean for us, for our divisions and our products? What can we learn from the past, and how can we prepare for the future? What do current customers tell us, and what are the blind spots that we all have and need to address?

The journey was accompanied by experts from all fields important to Kraft, for instance from agriculture, packaging, technology and from future research.

There were around 10 stations that the participants were able to visit with a group guide. They were aimed at bringing the participants out of their comfort zone and to let them reflect in-depth about the changes necessary for the company.

The stations, among others, provided the following experiences:
- Tunnel ten years into the past and ten years into the future: What can happen in a decade?
- A cross-generational group from London, who had traveled from London, ages 10 to 90, answering questions about the Kraft products and what consumers would like to change about them
- A packaging expert, explaining the true problems and sustainability issues of today's packaging
- Meet our producers: A farm with the animals that provide a large number of the raw materials needed by Kraft
- Future apartment: Meet the future clients in their habitat. How will we consume?
- A snack station designed by students - how are products created and sold in the future?
- An uncomfortable truth: Water scarcity and other raw material issues relevant to Kraft
- Futurologist as «Talking Heads»: 10 futurologists speaking from screens. Listen in closely or let yourself be overwhelmed by the noise of many who predict the future.

The Kraft participants were impressed with the consumer insights they were able to gain in this expedition, the speed at which the results were generated, the ability of BrainStore to process and summarise all knowledge streams generated in the journey as well as the heightened awareness of all the topics that will be important for the next decade.

The results of this amazing experience were evaluated in workshops (one per division).

A movie of the workshop series was made available to the Kraft Community. http://bitly.com/kraftmovie

2010