Challenge
Juanita’s, a beloved brand known for its authentic Mexican offerings, faced a bold challenge: how to explore innovation outside its core categories while staying true to its roots. With limited internal resources and no in-house innovation team, they needed a partner who could guide the journey—from foundational research through to strategic opportunity development.
Solution
Dig Insights designed and delivered a fully integrated innovation program—from macro trend research and cultural immersion to ideation and opportunity mapping. By starting with trends (not consumers), the program stretched Juanita’s thinking into white space categories while aligning the cross-functional team around a bold new vision.
Impact
The engagement unlocked a pipeline of bold, differentiated opportunities outside of Juanita’s traditional comfort zone—the next step will be testing and validating the viability of these opportunities in-market. The ideal end result? A future-forward innovation roadmap grounded in authenticity, feasibility, and consumer relevance.
Juanita’s is a US-based Mexican food company.
The Challenge
Innovating outside your expertise is scary—and thrilling. We knew we needed to do it, but we also knew we couldn’t do it alone and we didn’t know the best process to follow.
As a trusted name in authentic Mexican food, Juanita’s had long succeeded by focusing on cultural integrity and product excellence. But when tasked with driving step-change innovation, the team faced some real constraints: no formal innovation structure, limited time, and skepticism around venturing too far from their core.
The Juanita’s team turned to Dig Insights to lead a multi-phase approach to better understand their target consumers, segment them, and build out new opportunities spaces against them. These opportunities needed to honor the brand’s heritage while allowing it to stretch into untapped categories.
The Approach
When we started with trends instead of consumer insights, everything shifted. We saw the landscape differently. It was like new doors opened—and not just for the marketing team.
We proposed a three phase process to address the Juanita’s team need, of which phase one and phase two have been completed.
For the Juanita’s team, it was crucial that the program be delivered by one integrated partner—streamlining knowledge transfer, momentum, and strategic continuity.
Dig Insights led with trend research as a tool for strategic imagination and early-stage risk management. The team identified key macro signals shaping the future of food—then brought those to life through a multi-sensory immersion in Mexico City.
With stakeholders from marketing, sales, finance, operations, and more involved throughout, the process wasn’t just externally exploratory—it was internally transformative.
From there, Dig guided the team through qualitative research, opportunity space definition, and a structured ideation process—culminating in product territories that were surprising, bold, and commercially viable.
We were able to explore areas we never would’ve touched on our own—like how to reframe Better-For-You not as compromise, but as culturally-rooted flavor and health benefits coexisting.
The Impact
The work with Dig unlocked more than just ideas—it created strategic clarity, organizational buy-in, focused innovation opportunities, and a renewed excitement about what innovation could look like for Juanita’s.
What started as a question of “where else can we play?” became a company-wide roadmap for how Juanita’s could boldly lead in new categories, stay true to its roots, and reframe innovation as something within reach.
The amount of opportunities was surprising to us, it really gave me an opportunity to think far beyond what we’d pinpointed as opportunity spaces previously. And where we’ve landed is game-changing.
Key Takeaways
1. Push Hard for Foundational Insights Budget
Recognizing the absence of structured consumer insights, Erika advocated for dedicated research funding, leading to the development of a robust research foundation. This initiative enabled the company to make more informed decisions and fostered a culture that values data-driven strategies.
2. Involve [Sometimes Surprising] Stakeholders
Erika highlighted the value of collaborating across departments to amplify the impact of insights – but not just marketing and product development. Bringing in sales, finance, and operations was critical to ensure that research findings were integrated into various aspects of the business, leading to more cohesive and effective business strategies.
3. Capture Cultural Authenticity In-Person
Given Juanita’s Foods’ focus on authentic Mexican products, Erika stressed the necessity of capturing diverse consumer perspectives. Getting their team on-the-ground in Mexico City to truly immerse themselves in the food, culture, and commerce will have lasting impacts for years to come.
4. Bake Regionality Into Research Up-Front to Capture Nuance
Regional preferences weren’t new to Erika and team, but the importance of regionality – unique expressions of flavor and food preferences – was reinforced by Juanita’s trip to Mexico City. Ensuring that regionality is captured in all research is critical for their team going forwards.
What's Next
Juanita’s is now moving forwards with Phase 3 of the research, which involves:
- Developing top performing opportunity ideas
- Testing high fidelity concepts to understand opportunity size
- Building a comprehensive time horixon view of when and why to launch new items
The internal tone has shifted from “we can’t do that” to “we could do that—if.”
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