At a glance

Client: Valeo Foods, Odlums

Category: Home baking, flour and mixes

Market: Ireland, informed by UK, US and global signals

Agent: Innovation Agent, supported by Market Intelligence

Engagement: Category intelligence and innovation programme

Duration: Multi-week programme, from category scan to workshop-ready direction

Deliverables: Market signal map, behaviour framework, opportunity map and decision workshop

Outcome: A clearer, evidence-backed basis for innovation prioritisation

The challenge

Odlums is one of Ireland’s best-known baking brands, but familiarity does not make the category static. The occasions, motivations and expectations around home baking were shifting across retail, social and foodservice.

Each source showed part of the picture. Retail captured what was available, social showed how people were baking and talking about it, and menus indicated which formats and ideas were beginning to travel.

Valeo Foods needed one evidence base that separated durable change from noise and gave the team a clear basis for its next decisions.

The Innovation Agent

Talio deployed the Innovation Agent, supported by Market Intelligence, across more than 50,000 signals. It connected the shelf, the conversation and the menu before the strategy team turned the evidence into a decision-ready brief.

The Innovation Agent mines millions of data points across retail, social, menus and product launches, turning category movement into evidence-backed innovation direction.

It read the shelf and menu

The agent structured 3,500 retail listings and 1,500 cafe and restaurant menu items by mission, format, ingredient, claim and price.

That showed what consumers could buy today and which ideas were appearing beyond the home-baking aisle. It also created a market baseline against which emerging behaviour could be tested.

Retail

3,500 listings, read for mission, format, ingredient, claim and price.

Social

45,000 posts and comments, read for occasions, swaps, creativity and mood.

Menu

1,500 cafe and restaurant items, read for flavours, formats and early signals.

Synthesis

Eight behaviours organised into an evidence-backed opportunity map.

It read the conversation

The agent analysed 45,000 TikTok and Instagram posts and comments to understand the occasions, motivations and language shaping home baking.

Retail, menu and social findings were then cross-checked. Where the sources agreed, the signal strengthened; where they differed, the team found the questions worth exploring further.

It turned signals into decisions

Talio’s strategy team organised eight observed behaviours into a focused opportunity map. Each area was backed by source evidence and framed so the Valeo Foods team could compare opportunities on a consistent basis.

What was delivered

The engagement ended with decision material the team could use immediately:

Category signal map

One view of the retail, social and menu evidence shaping home baking.

Behaviour framework

Eight observed behaviours, with the supporting signals behind each one.

Evidence-backed opportunity map

Priority areas grounded in multiple sources and ready for client evaluation.

Workshop-ready decision framework

A consistent way to assess relevance, commercial potential and fit.

The outcome

From fragmentation to one picture. The team could see the category across three signal streams rather than through separate reports.

From signals to decisions. More than 50,000 data points became a concise, evidence-backed framework for prioritisation.

From research to a working brief. The output was structured for a leadership discussion, not left as a report to interpret.