Struggling moments are the small, often overlooked frustrations consumers face when interacting with food products. These challenges appear throughout the consumption journey – when planning meals, grocery shopping, cooking, eating, storing leftovers, or tossing expired items. Though they may seem minor, they often reveal deeper unmet needs that food and beverage (F&B) teams can solve through thoughtful product development.

In the context of market research F&B teams conduct, struggling moments give rise to authentic customer pain points. From a consumer perspective, they might not even articulate these moments directly – they might just say a product felt “inconvenient” or “not quite right.” But through observational research or guided interviews, these friction points come to light.

Examples of Common Food Struggles

• Food packaging pain points: Struggling to open tightly sealed plastic, reseal bags, or read unclear instructions
• Food storage problems: Lack of space in the refrigerator, confusion about freshness timelines, or containers that leak
• Meal prep stress: Products that require too many steps, are time-consuming, or create a lot of clean-up
• Portion control: Unsure how much to use, or unable to reseal multi-serving items for future use

These moments aren’t limited to physical products either. Struggles can also happen with shopping experiences – such as online store navigation or aisle organization – or with emotional factors, like guilt around unhealthy eating or confusion about ingredient transparency.

Why Struggling Moments Matter for Business Growth

When F&B brands pay attention to these moments, they gain a clearer understanding of real-life user behavior. Instead of focusing solely on opinions or preferences, teams can see what actually gets in the way of satisfaction and repeat usage. This approach provides a richer layer of consumer insights that can guide:

• Product development and redesign
• Food packaging improvements
• Enhanced customer journeys and usage experiences
• Marketing messages that clearly communicate value

Overall, identifying struggling moments allows teams to think beyond features and toward better outcomes. A salad kit with hard-to-read expiration dates or sauces that spill easily doesn't just frustrate a consumer – it makes them less likely to repurchase. Addressing these issues isn't just a fix; it's a business growth strategy.

At SIVO, we find that struggling moments often act as signals waiting to be decoded. When grounded in consumer empathy, they lead to smarter strategies and stronger products. They bridge the gap between what’s being offered and what consumers truly need.

The Jobs To Be Done (JTBD) framework is a powerful tool F&B teams can use to uncover the reasons behind customer choices – and frustrations. At its core, JTBD focuses on the idea that consumers “hire” products to get specific jobs done in their lives. When those jobs are not fulfilled effectively, it creates a 'struggling moment' – a gap between what the consumer needs and what the product delivers.

In food and beverage product development, understanding the job behind the product – whether that’s helping someone feed a busy family quickly, stay energized during work, or enjoy a mindful snack – shifts the focus from demographics to real-life context. This allows brands to find pain points they can solve meaningfully.

Why JTBD Matters in F&B Market Research

Unlike standard surveys that ask what consumers like or don’t like, JTBD-based food and beverage research explores:

• Context: What was happening in the consumer’s life when they encountered the challenge?
• Motivation: What outcome were they trying to achieve?
• Barriers: What got in the way of success or satisfaction?

By framing research around these elements, F&B teams can identify the deeper forces driving customer behaviors. For example, a fictional fast-casual brand might learn that customers aren’t just struggling with spoons that break in compostable bowls – they’re also juggling meals while driving or walking, requiring packaging that supports on-the-go eating.

Real-World (Fictional) Example

Consider a scenario where a parent reaches for a healthy lunchbox snack for their child. The job to be done might be: provide a nutritious, mess-free option that a young child can open independently. If the package is too hard to peel or spills easily, the job is not accomplished – and the parent experiences a struggling moment. This unmet need could inspire a packaging redesign or even a reformulation of the snack’s texture or shape to improve functionality.

Turning Frustrations into Food Innovation

JTBD gives structure and clarity to the anecdotal pain points uncovered in qualitative interviews or in-home usage testing. When used as part of a full-service custom research approach, it allows food and beverage innovation teams to:

• Segment consumers based on their jobs and goals, not just age or income
• Prioritize unmet consumer needs in product pipelines
• Fuel product development with real, actionable insights

Ultimately, JTBD helps brands move beyond surface-level questions and connect with consumer struggles in meaningful ways. When paired with observational and contextual research – which is core to SIVO’s offer – it becomes a bridge between real-world frustrations and ideas that matter. With this lens, every struggling moment becomes not a problem, but an opportunity to create something better.

Consumer frustrations with food often begin long before the first bite. 'Struggling moments' commonly emerge during packaging, storage, and usage – stages that are easy to overlook in product development. Yet, these moments reveal unmet needs and open up clear opportunities for innovation.

Packaging Pain Points

Think about how often consumers wrestle with hard-to-open seals, leaky lids, or excessive plastic. Package design may serve functional needs like shelf life or branding, but if it frustrates users during daily routines, it becomes a barrier to enjoyment – and repurchase. These are examples of real, recurring packaging issues in the food and beverage space.

Common packaging friction points:

• Difficulty opening jars or tear packs without scissors
• Non-resealable bags that lead to food spoilage
• Bulky or oddly shaped containers that don’t fit in fridges or lunch bags

Storage Struggles

Food storage problems surface both at home and on-the-go. Consumers often want to keep food fresh longer or need easier ways to store leftovers. Here, the challenge could be due to the package itself or consumers lacking ideal storage solutions. These frustrations can point to unmet consumer needs in the food industry ripe for product development.

Examples include:

• Meal kits that don’t stack well in standard fridge shelves
• Snacks without clear “portion save” options, causing food waste
• Items designed for on-shelf appeal but not fridge or pantry organization

Usage Friction

Even after opening and storing, consumers may run into challenges actually using the product. This could be challenges with dosing or pouring, unclear prep instructions, or tools needed that aren’t commonly available.

To illustrate, consider a fictional example of a consumer who buys a salad kit marketed as ‘ready to eat.’ However, after opening it, they realize the dressing packet is hard to open, the small fork breaks mid-meal, and the lettuce isn’t pre-chopped enough – all of which create friction and diminish the product experience.

Every struggle like this – even small – gives insight into how a product fits (or fails to fit) into a consumer's routine. When documented and analyzed through food and beverage research methods, these pain points can unlock valuable directions for innovation and improvement.

Once you've uncovered where consumers struggle – whether it's a sticky lid or confusing cooking instructions – the next step is turning those moments of frustration into sparks for food innovation. This is where frameworks like Jobs To Be Done shine, helping F&B teams translate customer pain points into concrete opportunities for growth.

Connecting Struggles to Jobs

Every product consumers buy is essentially a tool to get a “job” done – like feeding kids between school and sports, enjoying a quick breakfast during a commute, or storing leftovers easily. When that job is hindered by friction, it gives companies the chance to step in with a better solution.

Start by asking these guiding questions:

• What job is the consumer trying to accomplish when they encounter this pain?
• What emotions or frustrations are they experiencing?
• How might we eliminate or ease that friction with a new or revised offering?

These answers tie directly into food product strategy, helping brands align innovation with real-world needs rather than assumptions or trends.

Designing Solutions Around Needs

Let’s say (fictional example) a working parent keeps cereal bars in their bag for busy mornings but finds the current packaging crumbles the product. That signals an unmet need: a breakfast product that’s shelf-stable, portable, and sturdy under pressure. The pain point – crumbling bars – becomes a clear driver of product development innovation.

This kind of insight allows teams to revisit:

• Formulation and texture (how well does it travel?)
• Packaging design (is it crush-proof and resealable?)
• Serving size and labeling (can users eat it in motion without mess?)

This approach prevents guessing. Rather than brainstorm solutions in a vacuum, it grounds market research for food innovation in actual user experiences.

Prototyping and Prioritization

Not every problem will have a straightforward fix, and not every solution will be feasible right away. But small shifts – a change in shape, addition of a storage seal, clearer labeling – can dramatically improve how consumers view and use your product. Pairing the Jobs to Be Done mindset with cross-functional collaboration makes these opportunities much easier to identify and act on.

Ultimately, the companies that win are those who stay closest to consumer realities – and treat even minor friction as potential breakthroughs.

Once you’ve identified promising areas of opportunity from struggling moments, it’s time to validate those ideas – and sharpen them through deeper consumer understanding. This is where consumer insight research becomes an essential part of the food and beverage product development process.

Why Validation Matters

While team brainstorming and internal ideation can spark smart ideas, they need to be grounded in consumer reality. Research supports this by exploring:

• Does the proposed change actually solve the consumer struggle?
• Is the pain point widespread or isolated?
• How much would consumers value the new solution?
• Does the product change align with existing habits or require behavior shifts?

A concept may seem clever internally but still fall flat if it doesn’t feel intuitive to the people it’s meant to serve. Insight work helps you avoid costly missteps and focus innovation on the areas that will drive meaningful adoption.

Blending Qual and Quant Tools

Great F&B research blends qualitative and quantitative methods to uncover and validate consumer needs. With SIVO’s full-service capabilities, for example, brands can run ethnographic research to observe how people store, prep, or consume foods at home – highlighting friction in context. Quantitative surveys can then size the opportunity and test different solution directions.

This layered approach empowers teams to:

• Explore emerging behaviors transforming how we eat or shop
• Spot overlooked issues like food storage problems in older consumers
• Test concepts before launch to minimize risk and maximize relevance

Ongoing Innovation, Not One-Off Fixes

Importantly, the process isn’t linear. The most successful brands adopt a mindset of continuous discovery – checking in regularly with real people to uncover unmet consumer needs in the food industry, stress-test assumptions, and explore evolving expectations.

Pairing tools like Jobs to Be Done with experienced market researchers opens up a steady stream of insight-driven innovation. Instead of relying on yearly refresh cycles or trend-chasing, your teams stay closely connected to what matters most: how your products make people’s lives better.

It’s not just about fixing problems – it’s about designing with people in mind from the start.