Innovation tools for a Danish licorice maker
Consulting analysis for Bagsværd Lakrids
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A brown paper-wrapped Bagsværd Lakrids salt licorice caramel bag on a table
- Client
- Bagsværd Lakrids
- Context
- Technology and Innovation Management, DTU
- Year
- 2024
- Role
- Sole author, individual report
- Team size
- Group investigation, individual analysis
- Tools
- Semi-structured interviews · Observation · Benchmarking · Personas
- Contribution
- Sole author of the individual analysis, the group ran the investigation
An interview and observation study of a 60-person Danish licorice company, and an individually authored argument for two innovation tools: benchmarking to fix its lack of strategy, and personas to let it scale production without losing the customers who buy it for being handmade.
The company
Bagsværd Lakrids, founded 2015, one combined shop and production site, around 750 stockists across Denmark, roughly 60 employees but only four full-time. It is very conscious of its image as a luxury brand and is perceived as making an exclusive product. Our research was an interview with a floor manager plus on-site observation, following a group presentation that identified six key problems.
What we found
Decision-making was spontaneous to the point of being a strategy in itself. The floor manager described it as: first idea, first thought, that is what we are going with. A new Easter flavour was created in twenty minutes. It had backfired before, a Christmas variant was poorly received, and customers who tried it first then refused to try any other flavour. Production and inventory were cluttered, with hundreds of boxes and tight doorways leaving little room to move them. During one stretch of a few months, production ran roughly 22 hours a day and at least one employee cried every day. Most of the process is manual, including licorice sheets cut by hand with knives. Direct consumer contact was almost nonexistent. Customer information arrives second-hand through stockists, or sporadically at events. A one-off customer survey had worked well, and had never been repeated.
Why these two tools
The company's fear of changing production rests on an assumption, that customers will read a less handmade product as just another cheap licorice, and that assumption has never been tested, because they have no direct line to their consumers. Benchmarking addresses the strategy gap by letting them study companies that have faced the same problem; I recommended Lakrids by Bülow specifically, which has dealt with imitator brands, remained the most popular licorice brand in Denmark, and scaled its production, so they could see what that did to reputation and sales. Personas address the assumption directly: gather qualitative data from actual consumers, cluster it, and build four to five personas, so that decisions about production are made against evidence rather than fear.
Limitations I argued
Benchmarking can tip into imitation rather than innovation, and the authenticity association matters enormously to this management. Competitor data may simply not be available, particularly from smaller imitators. And the investigative work would draw heavily on a management team of four, which may mean hiring in help, a real cost for a company this size, and one that needs a cost-benefit case of its own. Personas carry their own risk: the data may show the main customer base does not care how the licorice is made, while a small number of enthusiasts and reviewers do, and those are the people whose word of mouth travels.
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Bagsværd Lakrids signage on the corner of its shop and production building at dusk