Bord Bia has launched the Thinking House, a new state-of-the art Consumer Research Centre, that will help Irish exports compete in a highly competitive global market place.

The Thinking House, which was launched at Bord Bia HQ in Dublin today, will provide Ireland’s food, drink and horticulture industry with unrestricted access to the latest global trends, research, consumer insights and industry innovations.

The new innovation will be managed by Helen King, Director of Consumer Insight, and a team of 12 professionals.

According to Bord Bia, the creative space provided by the Thinking House includes a Trend Zone to highlight the latest food and drink innovations from around the world and a packaging and branding gallery to promote best in class design.

The Trend Zone will showcase Bord Bia’s recent work with Irish food and drinks brands.

The new building also features the Living Room, which will allow Bord Bia and the industry to conduct qualitative focus and discussion groups.

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The Living Room in Bord Bia’s Thinking House

This room is equipped with audio, video recording and live streaming capacity along with a library, which provides invaluable access to a wide range of databases and reports which may have been financially prohibitive to source for many small to medium-sized companies working in the industry.

Video: Take a behind the scenes look at the new Bord Bia Thinking House

Speaking at the launch this morning, Aidan Cotter, Chief Executive of Bord Bia said the Thinking House sends a signal of how our industry will seek to compete and will, over time, prove transformation.

“The recent performance of our food and drink exports, growing by more than 50% over the past six years, and now at just short of €11 billion, has been exceptional in the context of its time, positioning the industry at the heart of our economic recovery.

As the industry strives to reach the ambitious export target of €19 billion, the goal set by Food Wise 2025, it now requires transformational initiatives to support another step change in export growth.

Cotter also said that to be successful in a highly competitive global market place a deep understanding of the consumer and insights are needs to effectively communicate relevant points of difference.