What Benefits Can SMEs in the Food Industry Gain from Innovative Products?

This paper is aimed at investigating the benefits that SMEs in the food industry gain by having innovative products. For this research, a questionnaire to collect data from SME representatives was distributed through email after drawing on the database in Thailand. The 83 SMEs from the food industry that responded were divided into two groups: 1) 38 non-innovative ones that had delivered no innovative products and 2) 45 innovative that had created new products for this type of industry. The author adopted t-testing to find the difference of benefits in a range of aspects, including: cost saving, fewer team members, less office space needed, time savings, decrease in routine work, fast in response time, increase in collaboration, greater market penetration and work flexibility. The results revealed benefits for innovative SMEs in all aspects considered when compared with non-innovative ones. In particular, innovative SMEs exhibited quicker response times and increased collaboration for the business than their counterparts. The findings support the focal SMEs taking advantage of the benefits of innovation for their business by creating and releasing onto the innovative products.