An insight & innovation studio specialising in food & drink.

We challenge thinking with a new perspective that’s rooted in over 15 years experience and a deep understanding of now-&-next trends and behaviours. We are passionate about creating new products and actionable food strategies that are compelling, uniquely human, and have a clear point of view.

Recent projects

Bespoke insights that make your brand more relevent, more often.

INSIGHT

Food and drink expertise with razor sharp insights. Drawing on our professional network, industry data, street trends and horizon research, we give the hot-take that AI can’t find. Including creative strategy, concept development and brand positioning.

INNOVATION

Thought leadership that helps you create the future. Want to understand the future of soda, rethink your category, or develop a genuinely innovative product? Try our bespoke NPD process, including ideation, strategy, refining the proposition, and format and flavour development.

CULTURE

We help create an innovative food culture from within your business. Including hosting events, workshops and providing bespoke internal comms to keep your team ahead of the trends.

PAST PROJECTS

See recent work
Harris and Hayes food consultants

  • Supporting the iconic luxury retailer with trends and insight to supercharge their seasonal campaigns and new product development. Including actionable recommendations to improve their positioning, storytelling and activations.

    “Your ideas really resonated with current discussions we are having internally and we would love to explore further for this year and next. Thank you for such a thought provoking response to brief’.”

    Marine Leduc-Soudan, Head of Marketing Operations at Fortnum & Mason

  • Thought leadership projects to inform retail and hospitality innovation projects. Bespoke reports and in-person events explored the future of home and out-of-home cooking, anticipating emerging trends and new opportunities for Tefal and Groupe Seb appliances.

    “Harris and Hayes provided us with original strategic thinking, comprehensive insights, and key recommendations. A bespoke London event allowed us unique access to the capital's best chefs and kitchen operators, and we tasted the latest trends first-hand, exploring pertinent questions relevant to our business.”

    Goran Kurt, Vice President Innovation, Groupe SEB

  • Bringing the outside in for LSN Global intelligence platform via monthly food and drink insight drops. Making sense of future signals, behaviours, trends, topics and viewpoints. 

    “It's been so good working with you both and tapping into your thinking and wide knowledge. You really brought such fantastic, and much needed, industry insight - thank you.”

    Fiona Harkin, Director of Foresight at The Future Laboratory

  • We delivered a thought leadership piece for Costa that included an expert review of their current range, competitive landscape and relevant trends to inform and inspire Costa’s innovation pipeline. 

    A bespoke report detailed macro and micro recommendations to strengthen their food offering, grouped into four key areas. We gave our Harris and Hayes take on the current product range, including a gap analysis, and where to build on success. We provided both category and individual product innovation ideas, supported by competitive analysis and benchmarking exercise, and highlighted some key centres of excellece to take inspiration from. We provided recommendations of what Costa can credibly be famous for and how.

  • Flavour and Fragrance House Fuerst Day Lawson, briefed us on an innovation project to retain and win them new customers.

    We curated detailed, bespoke reports to support two of their syrup and sauce flavour brands.

    Including:

    • Key trends informed by the latest consumer, market and product developments

    • background, data and insight to support innovation

    • global disruptors and brands of note

    • key opportunities to go after with clear action points

    • category flavour predictions and mood boards

    We presented the visual reports, which fed directly into client conversations, with fantastic feedback:

    Alex and Lisa carried out extremely thorough insight and analysis to inform innovation opportunities for two of our brands. They presented the key trends most relevant to our business and strategy, and near to far opportunities to go after, which has been invaluable. Their inspirational reports have supported conversations with our clients, and helped to position ourselves as industry thought leaders. I'd highly recommend them for their extensive industry knowledge and very collaborative attitude.  

    Sam Warren - Brand Manager, FDL

Get in touch

Let’s be honest.

AI has changed the face of ideation and future forecasting. It can whip up passable desk research, analyse large data sets, and collate global information in seconds.

What AI won’t do

If you’re using it, so is everyone else. Which means everyone is coming to the same conclusion. AI summarises what already exists, but it won’t help you find genuine opportunity before it happens. AI doesn’t have access to our expert network, street trends insights, and original strategic thinking.

Harris & Hayes

We turn multidirectional consumer signals into incisive decisions you can meaningfully innovate on. AI can hallucinate, whilst we’ll help your team see clearly and make hard judgement calls on what matters now and next in the food and drink landscape.

If you want to think differently and future-proof your business

From Our Clients

  • Vandemoortele food trends

    Sabine Sagert, Managing Director, Vandemoortele

    Lisa and Alex are real experts in scouting emerging trends in the market and ensured the content for our board Study Tour was in line with the brief. They are extremely professional, organised and easy to work with.

  • M&C Saatchi food trends

    Rachel Manning, Clear M&C Saatchi

    Alex and Lisa helped us better understand the key market, product trends within the category, and emerging future-facing opportunities. I'd highly recommend them for their extensive industry knowledge and consumer-centric approach.

  • Food and drink trends

    Victoria Joseph, Account Director, William Murray Food & Drink PR

    I highly recommend working with Harris and Hayes. Their insights were invaluable for our Délifrance trend report on bread and viennoiserie, and they gave an engaging presentation in the journalist webinar too. They have a thorough understanding of emerging trends and consumer behaviour.

  • Canvas 8 food trends

    Lowri Meggison, Senior Access Manager, Canvas8

    Harris and Hayes always provide such great insight to the world of food and drink, communicate promptly, and are quick to learn about client objectives before entering the consultation. We love working with Harris and Hayes and would recommend them to anyone looking to understand the current and predicted future trends of food and drink.

  • LSN future food trends

    Fiona Harkin, Director of Foresight, The Future Laboratory

    Alex and Lisa brought such fantastic, and much needed, industry insight.

  • Flavour house food trends

    Sam Warren, Brand Manager, ADM

    Alex and Lisa carried out extremely thorough insight and analysis to inform innovation opportunities for two of our brands. Their inspirational reports have supported conversations with our clients, and helped to position ourselves as industry thought leaders. I'd highly recommend them for their extensive industry knowledge and very collaborative attitude.

  • tefal food trends

    Goran Kurt, Vice President Innovation, Groupe SEB.

    Harris and Hayes provided original strategic thinking, comprehensive insights, and key recommendations for us to explore.

Examples of work