BP

Bob Pankey

Things Bob Says on Podcasts

Where to Find Them

Bob Pankey has been a guest on The Startup CPG Podcast .

Recently: “Product Development and 40+ Years of CPG Industry Experience” on The Startup CPG Podcast (November 2026).

What They Said

“I always kind of say all food has already been created. You're never going to come up with something completely brand new. What you're doing is taking a type of food and morphing it into a different format. Or you're doing different combinations, or different packaging, and presenting it to the consumer so that they can take it in different ways.” — Bob Pankey, The Startup CPG Podcast

Pankey, a veteran food product developer, and the host were discussing food trends. He offers this view of what product development really is.

The Startup CPG Podcast · 2026-11-09 Permalink → Listen →
The Startup CPG Podcast Around 26:13 into the episode
Bob Pankey

Yeah. Yeah. Why is that safe? And why is that acceptable, but not otherwise? Also, in the holiday season, butter will be shelf just stacked in the aisleways for sale. I remember as a kid, I grew up working at a grocery store. And to this day, I love grocery stores. I love walking through.

Adam Yee

Yeah, that's one of my favorite things to do.

Bob Pankey

What's out there? I always kind of say all food has already been created. You're never going to come up with something completely innovation, completely brand new. What you're doing then is you're taking a type of food and you're morphing it into a different format, all right, which is interesting. Or you're doing different combinations or you're doing different packaging and presenting it to the consumer so that they can take it in different ways. Yeah,

Adam Yee

I think that's a good point. One of the things I always say to people is like, the consumer can only handle so much change. And you'd be surprised just how little you have to really innovate because you need to capture that kind of familiar market share too. Retailers know this specifically. They…

Bob Pankey

Right. And I think some products struggle with that. It may be an excellent product, but people are like, I don't understand this. Well, how does this work? Or why would I want that? Why would I buy that instead of just buying it this way? And so you're right. That's a challenge and something to…

Adam Yee

Yeah. I think this is really important because I had a co-founder who had a nutrition company and he said his top flavors for nutritional shakes was vanilla and chocolate. Yeah.

Speaker names come from our own diarization. The position is estimated from where the line sits in the episode.
“Consumers will tell you something, but you have to read between the lines, because they think they want this, but what they really want is that savory eating experience. … You may have the best, highest amount of protein. You may have the highest amount of fiber. You may be gluten-free. Whatever your other guardrails are. If the product doesn't eat well, you don't have a product.” — Bob Pankey, The Startup CPG Podcast

Pankey had described a focus group where consumers said they wanted more meat in a frozen snack but, given samples, chose more cheese. He draws a rule for his food-startup clients from it.

The Startup CPG Podcast · 2026-11-09 Permalink → Listen →
The Startup CPG Podcast Around 35:10 into the episode
Bob Pankey

…was consumers, more meat, more meat. You couldn't put enough meat into a hot pocket. But then we would run a focus group study with them. We would show them a sample that had 20% more meat in it. And then we'd show them a sample with 20% more cheese in it. And hands down, they wanted the cheese.

Adam Yee

That's funny.

Bob Pankey

So consumers will tell you something, but you have to kind of read between the lines because they think they want this, but what they really want is that savory eating experience. And that's another thing that I tell my clients: your product has to taste good. Your product has to be something that people want to continue to eat. Okay. You may have the best, highest amount of protein. You may have the highest amount of fiber. You may be gluten-free. Whatever your other guardrails are. If the product doesn't eat well, you don't have a product. Yeah, for

Adam Yee

sure. Definitely. Bob, it was so good to talk to you. You can tell you have a lot of knowledge. So I think anyone should reach out and just pick your brand for 30 minutes. So thanks so much for being on the show. Thank

Bob Pankey

you very much. This was fun. Thank you.

Adam Yee

Thank you for listening to Startup CBG's RD Radio. I hope you guys enjoyed this conversation. We've now arrived together at the end of another episode of the Startup CBG podcast. I'm proud to be part of the team that's part of the top globally ranked podcast at CPG. As you may know, we're not just…

Speaker names come from our own diarization. The position is estimated from where the line sits in the episode.

Collections They Appear In

Alternative Proteins