Food & Beverage Innovation

Improving the health and vitality of people and planet

At Virtuo, we help develop raw, fresh and unique healthy food and beverage products and brands that promote sustainability.

Delicious, nutritious sustainable food and drinks made with respect and branded with a genuine duty of care for the world around us.

We need to eat several times a day. What we eat has a big impact on our health and the health of our environment. This is why we work in designing solution to help feed the world nutritiously and sustainably. We come from a productive food producing nation, helping producers connect with consumers and grow and deliver better food and beverage options.


/ Our Experience

At Virtuo, we work across a broad range of food and beverage applications. The common consideration and focus is to honor the values and qualities that our food and beverage partners put into their products, and translate them into authentic brands and positive experiences for consumers. From the ingredient level up, our team is passionate about improving health and vitality for people and pets through food and nutrition.

  • With a passion for healthy foods, we work with growers and producers to build brands that share their honest stories and connect with consumers. We build brand systems, visual communications, packaging innovations and omni-channel strategies.

  • At Virtuo, we have worked across a wide range of processes, including: purification, pasturisation, fermentation, juicing, infusion, freeze drying, extrusion, powderisation and many more. Sometimes its a new novel format or process that unlocks new value in a market.

  • Research into functional ingredients for new nutritional foods and natural supplements and is a field of work we enjoy as it crosses-over many of the areas of our expertise and purpose. Product applications have included sports supplements, infant formula, and wellness vitamins.

  • Pets are like us in many ways and deserve high quality food that nourishes. Virtuo works with petfood companies, helping them create well respected global brands that bring innovation and inspiration to pet lovers around the world.

  • At Virtuo, we enjoy working across all natural protein products with numerous producers. This work includes conducting consumer and market research, building brands, developing products, and novel production and delivery systems.

  • Beverages is a unique space with high brand and cultural significance. At Virtuo, we have worked with tea producers, premium coffee, to beer, wine and spirit brands. Positioning, form, aesthetics, taste, labeling, packaging and bottling, are common capabilities we provide to the beverage industry.

/ Who we’ve worked with

/ What our clients say

Virtuo facilitated a complex, multi-stakeholder process to develop a brand story for all avocados from New Zealand. They provided a forum for stakeholder input and listened carefully to the needs of the industry body, commercial exporter operators and in-market representatives. They applied multiple consumer research methodologies across five different countries, which uncovered new and exciting positioning territories, and applied a robust consumer testing methodology that enabled the territories that performed most strongly with consumers to be prioritised. A compelling suite of research insights and a robust set of final brand guidelines were delivered, which are now enabling a disruptive and unique brand story for avocados from New Zealand to be delivered with consistency by multiple stakeholders in multiple markets.

The learnings throughout this process have isolated what is truly important to avocado consumers in these markets, and changed the way we think about marketing avocados from New Zealand. The carefully managed development process across multiple stakeholders has enabled immediate uptake and application of the new brand story by New Zealand’s largest avocado exporters, and the work delivered by Launchsight will be critical to ensuring the ongoing growth and success of the New Zealand avocado industry.

Bevan Jelley — Market Manager, New Zealand Avocado