Understanding demand for innovation in the food industry

Purpose – This paper aims to focus on understanding how demand for innovation is articulated in low‐tech industries, dominated by SMEs, where innovation is often based on informal processes and uncodified knowledge, relying on intangible assets.Design/methodology/approach – The authors hypothesize that the problems found in the innovation area are exacerbated in a traditional industry. SMEs might have difficulty understanding what their requirements might be, let alone finding the optimal provider of technologies. The authors therefore expect to find three main forms of demand: real, latent, and potential. The specific case is the food industry in Apulia, Italy. First, focus groups identified general business and technology needs. Then in‐depth interviews were conducted with 87 firms, stratified in order to be representative of food firms in Apulia.Findings – The authors detected 285 different needs requiring an innovative solution. In most cases, firms understand the areas to be improved, but do not have...