Ecotone: three workshops, three units of analysis — an occasion, a category, a brand

Context

Ecotone: three workshops, three units of analysis — an occasion, a category, a brand

These three workstreams share a characteristic that often goes unnoticed and that determines everything else: they do not concern the same type of object. Breakfast is a consumption occasion. Plant-based is a product category. Bonneterre is a brand. Three different units of analysis, which do not reveal the same things and do not compare with each other.

Most innovation programmes never make that distinction explicit, and that is precisely why their outputs turn out impossible to rank together. This case describes how you design three different formats for three different questions, while keeping the ability to arbitrate them at the same moment. The territories identified, the conclusions and proprietary client data are not disclosed.

A European group built around a mission: Ecotone was born in 2020 from the renaming of Wessanen, with an explicit mission: to nourish biodiversity. Its public portfolio brings together a dozen national and European brands — Allos, Alter Eco, Bjorg, Bonneterre, Clipper, Danival, Destination, El Granero, Isola Bio, Kallø, Whole Earth and Zonnatura — across seven European countries, with headquarters near Lyon.

The group reported revenue of around €645 million in 2020, of which close to €400 million in France. Bjorg holds leading positions in organic grocery retail: around 61.7% market share in organic plant-based drinks, 50.4% in organic biscuits and 47.1% in organic cereals.

A commitment verified rather than declared: In 2019 Ecotone became the first European food company certified B Corp. On re-certification in 2025 it scored 123.7 points, the highest among large certified French companies across all sectors, and the highest among large certified food companies globally. The group has also been deploying the Planet-score on its products since 2023.

That point has a direct consequence for innovation. In a company whose mission is audited, an attractive route that is weak environmentally is not merely debatable: it is incompatible. The constraint enters the workshop instead of arriving at the end.

Three questions that do not resemble each other: The likely challenge was to run three distinct explorations without treating them identically, while producing results comparable at the point of arbitration.

Breakfast is an occasion. You reason in moments, gestures, time constraints and table compositions. The question posed is: what actually happens in the morning, and what is not served there?

Plant-based is a category. You reason in substitution, product performance, culinary uses and reference points against the original product. The question posed is: what does this product do that its dairy equivalent does not, or does less well?

A brand's category expansion is something else again. You reason in perceived legitimacy. The question posed is: how far can this brand go before the proposition feels forced?

The trap of the single workshop: The economical temptation is to handle all three subjects in one format. It systematically produces the same result: ideas formulated at different levels, impossible to compare, and a final arbitration made on enthusiasm for want of a common criterion.

The European constraint: The group operates in seven countries with largely national brands. An opportunity identified in one market can be structurally inoperative in another — breakfast habits, in particular, are among the most culturally rooted in food.

The workshops were framed around questions of this kind:

When a commitment is verified by a third party rather than declared, it stops being a communication argument and becomes a product development constraint.

Strategic challenge

The questions that structured the work

Research and work conducted

What the engagement covered

• The last question has to be handled upstream. Without a common criterion defined before the workshops, the three outputs will remain incomparable, whatever their individual quality.
• The approach rests on one principle: you choose the unit of analysis before designing the workshop, and you say so.
• Incomparable outputs: Ideas drawn from an occasion, a category and a brand are not formulated at the same level. Without a common grid defined upstream, final arbitration happens on the enthusiasm of whoever presents.
• The cultural rootedness of breakfast: Morning habits are among the most stable and most national in food. An innovation that is obvious in one country can be beside the point in another, without that reflecting any market lag.
• Substitution as the plant-based trap: Reasoning in alternatives locks the category into a comparison it does not always win. Stepping outside substitution logic to identify what the product does better is difficult and necessary.
• Legitimacy as the limit of extension: A brand established on a precise territory holds credibility that does not automatically travel. The constraint is not industrial but perceptual, and it is discovered rather than decreed.
• The environmental requirement as a filter: In a mission-audited company, an attractive but environmentally weak route cannot be improved at the end of the process. It has to be discarded early, which requires the constraint to be present from ideation.
• Multi-country coordination: Making teams from several markets work together requires designs that produce comparable material despite different contexts. This is not one workshop repeated.

Deliverables

Objects teams can use beyond the engagement

• Three distinct workshop designs, built around the unit of analysis specific to each subject.
• A map of breakfast moments and unserved occasions.
• A reading of the plant-based category beyond substitution logic.
• A qualification of the boundaries of legitimacy for the Bonneterre brand.
• Growth territories formulated for each workstream.
• A shared arbitration grid allowing routes of different natures to be compared.
• A distinction between European opportunities and strictly national ones.
• Documented workshop formats, handed over to the teams for reuse.

Key learnings

What this case makes clear

• The unit of analysis — occasion, category or brand — is the most structuring decision in an innovation programme, and the least often made explicit.
• An occasion reveals unserved moments, a category missing performance, a brand boundaries of legitimacy. The three do not compare spontaneously.
• Without an arbitration grid defined before the workshops, final selection happens on enthusiasm.
• In plant-based, reasoning in substitution locks the category into a comparison it does not always win.
• Breakfast is among the most culturally rooted occasions: a national obvious is rarely a European obvious.
• In a mission-audited company, the environmental constraint is a design parameter, not an end-of-process filter.

For comparable organisations

Where this approach is useful

This case will speak to organisations showing at least one of the following characteristics: Several innovation workstreams run in parallel on objects of different natures. Workshop outputs that nobody manages to rank together. A portfolio of largely national brands deployed across several countries. A category defined against an original product, with the risk of permanent comparison. A brand established on a precise territory and tempted by extension. An environmental commitment verified by a third party that genuinely constrains product development. These situations recur in food, beverages, personal care, household products and retail — wherever several explorations coexist and eventually have to be arbitrated together.