I feel embarrassed when I don’t do something exciting

This gives us a competitive advantage and the certainty that our competitors next door cannot do the same, explains Kristi Lehtis, the founder and manager of Chocolala, an Estonian craft chocolate manufacturer, why the company invests significantly in innovation. “I feel embarrassed if I don’t do something exciting.”

“Then what would be the product that they want to buy from us?” That is why the company has entered the market with such products as, for example, moose lichen in chocolate, which producers in other countries cannot imitate – lichen is not found everywhere or it is protected.

“These are products that others cannot make and that we ourselves can protect, several products are protected by patents. This gives us a little assurance that the competitors next door cannot do the same.” Chocolala systematically invests in development every year and also belongs to the 2% club, whose members invest either 2% of their turnover or at least one million euros in research and development activities annually.

Innovations help create a market

In addition to increasing today’s sales, by systematically acting and innovating, future demand can also be created, emphasized Aaro Lode, head of the catering company Baltic Restaurants Estonia. “This is the creation of the market of the future,” he noted. It also helps to cope with cost growth and work more efficiently. The manager of the company, which mainly deals with school catering, explained that this field has changed a lot in recent years, which requires different service and approaches from the service providers.

“School meals 5-7 years ago were like night and day compared to today – if earlier the portion was placed on the plate, now there are self-service lines, the selection and display of food and nutritional trends have changed,” he explained. “Nutrition is no longer a standardized world and people eat differently for religious, health or sports reasons. From there, the need arises to personalize everything.”

Both companies deal with innovation and the search for new ideas systematically. For example, Lehtis goes with his team to study with better chocolatiers than himself. “To see what they’re doing and how we can do better than the best in those countries,” he explained. “It’s not just learning the recipe, it’s broader – how the kitchen is clean, how they dress, how they behave. It is very important where you go. If you position yourself as a luxury brand, you can’t go to a non-luxury brand to learn.”

Companies will continue to experiment

Systematicity distinguishes companies that have reached a different development stage in innovation and those that have remained there or that have made a leap in development. Innotrepp, a tool for evaluating the innovation capacity born from the cooperation of scientists, experts and entrepreneurs, which maps the current state of companies and offers the next steps to reach a new level, divides companies into five categories – innovation enthusiast, tester of individual innovations, process-driven innovator, strategic innovator and ecosystem designer. In turn, their capability is evaluated according to six parameters. The glass ceiling of the most common development is between the second and third stages, perhaps they are tested, but they do not become systemic.

Chocolala and Baltic Restaurants Estonia also tested their position on the stairs. The first got 3.4 and the second 2.5. The maximum possible is 5. However, Kati Rostfeldt, innovation advisor of the Central Union of Employers, explained that it is probably difficult and pointless to apply for the maximum in Estonia, because it rather describes global and radically innovative companies with global influence.

“We are a strong middle,” Lode stated. According to him, this mapping, especially with the help of consultants and describing the company’s activities out loud, helps to decipher the company’s activities and results. “For us, innovation is not a goal in itself, but a means to make a profit. If we don’t lead the changes ourselves, we will probably soon be among the last on the market.”

Kristi Lehtis explained that they discovered a big problem with this experience. “The problem is that we have all the good thoughts in our heads, but they are not written down. We do it by gut feeling, but we should act a little smarter,” he said. In his opinion, for a more systematic implementation, the fresh innovation ISO standard could be applied for, because his company has benefited a lot from the ISO standard in organizing its activities.