Marie Case Study:Less Cost, Full Bourguignon Flavour

Cost pressure often forces food brands into what feels like an impossible choice: protect the product’s profitability or protect the flavour people already love. 

But what if reformulation could do more than reduce costs? 

What if it could also create a better ingredient story, open a new product category and reveal opportunities that were not part of the original brief? 

That was the challenge behind our work with Marie on one of France’s most recognisable comfort dishes: Bœuf Bourguignon. 

The project began with a clear objective. Reduce the amount of beef, one of the most expensive ingredients in the recipe, without losing the depth, generosity and long-cooked character people expect from the dish. 

Instead of developing only one alternative, we explored two directions: 

• A Bœuf Bourguignon with half the meat  

• A completely vegan Bourguignon inspired by the same culinary identity  

One brief became two distinct product opportunities. 

• The Challenge Behind a Familiar Dish  
• One Brief, Two Opportunities  
• Reducing the Meat Without Reducing the Experience  
• Building a Vegan Bourguignon with Real Depth  
• What the Blind Tasting Revealed 

• More Than a Cost-Reduction Project  
• What Other Food Brands Can Learn from the Marie Project  
• From a Classic Recipe to a Platform for Innovation  
• Bring Us the Challenge 

Bœuf Bourguignon is more than a combination of meat, vegetables and red wine. 

It is a familiar culinary experience. 

People expect a rich sauce, deep savoury notes and ingredients that taste as though they have been cooking together for hours. The dish should feel generous, comforting and complete. 

Reducing the beef therefore affects much more than the cost of the recipe. 

It can change the body of the sauce, weaken the savoury profile and make the other ingredients feel less connected. The wine can become more pronounced. The vegetables can feel separate from the sauce. The finished dish may still look like Bourguignon but no longer deliver the same experience. 

The goal was not simply to replace the missing meat. 

It was to protect what made the dish recognisable in the first place. 

That meant focusing on the qualities consumers actually experience: 

• Savoury depth  

• A rich and rounded mouthfeel  

• Aromatic complexity  

• Balance between the wine, vegetables and sauce  

• A convincing long-cooked character  

• A satisfying finish  

These qualities became the foundation of the project. 

The initial challenge was economic, but the development process quickly revealed two possible directions. 

The first was a renovation of the existing recipe. 

By reducing the beef and lardons by half, Marie could significantly decrease the product’s dependence on costly animal ingredients while remaining close to the original Bœuf Bourguignon proposition. 

The second direction was more ambitious. 

Could the culinary identity of Bourguignon be translated into a completely vegan recipe? 

This version would not simply remove the meat and leave the rest of the dish unchanged. It needed to offer its own satisfying eating experience while remaining connected to the depth and comfort associated with the original recipe. 

The two routes served different purposes. 

The reduced-meat recipe addressed an immediate cost challenge. 

The vegan recipe created the possibility of a new range extension. 

For the first prototype, the quantity of beef and lardons was reduced by approximately half. 

But the project was never approached as a simple subtraction exercise. 

When a central ingredient changes, the complete recipe needs to be reconsidered. The sauce, vegetables, aromatics and seasoning must work differently together. 

The team therefore rebalanced the dish and introduced a tailored fermented flavour blend designed specifically for the application. 

Made from familiar plant ingredients such as chickpeas, sunflower seeds and buckwheat, together with vegetable concentrates, cooked yeast, herbs and spices, the blend helped reconnect the different parts of the recipe. 

Its role was not to introduce an obvious new flavour. 

It was to help the Bourguignon feel whole again. 

The result was a recipe with half the meat and a projected cost reduction of at least 40%, while maintaining the rich and savoury identity at the centre of the dish.  

The vegan route required a more complete reinvention. 

Without beef or lardons, there was a much larger flavour gap to fill. Yet simply making the sauce stronger would not have been enough. 

The recipe still needed balance. 

It needed body without heaviness, complexity without artificial intensity and enough depth to bring the wine, vegetables and aromatics together. 

Most importantly, it needed to feel like a dish in its own right. 

The vegan version was therefore developed around the experience of Bourguignon rather than around a direct imitation of meat. 

The objective was to preserve the culinary signals that make the original so appealing: 

• A deep savoury base  

• A rounded and generous sauce  

• Integrated vegetable and wine notes  

• A long, satisfying finish  

• The impression of slow cooking  

The tailored fermented blend supported this structure, helping the recipe deliver greater mouthfeel and aromatic depth from recognisable plant-based ingredients. 

At the development stage, the vegan recipe showed a projected recipe-cost reduction of 80%. 

But the result was about more than cost. 

It demonstrated that an established dish could become the foundation for a new plant-based proposition without losing its culinary point of view. 

A reformulation may work on paper, but the final answer always comes from the plate. 

To assess the impact of the flavour solution, the reduced-meat and vegan recipes were compared with equivalent versions made without it. 

Eight trained judges tasted the samples blind. 

The evaluation focused on the qualities that mattered most to the project: mouthfeel and long-cooked character. 

Across the comparisons, the versions containing the tailored fermented blend delivered a stronger perception of these attributes. 

The difference was not about adding one dominant flavour. 

It was about making the recipes feel more complete. 

The sauce felt fuller. The different ingredients worked more naturally together. The final experience came closer to the comforting, slow-cooked identity the team wanted to protect.  

For the development team, this provided a clear signal that both concepts were moving in the right direction. 

The most immediate result of the project was financial. 

The reduced-meat version offered a projected cost reduction of at least 40%, while the vegan route showed an 80% reduction in recipe cost at the prototype stage. 

However, focusing only on these numbers would miss the wider value of the work. 

The project also created three important opportunities. 

Marie could potentially develop several propositions from the same culinary territory: 

• The original Bœuf Bourguignon  

• A more cost-efficient version with less meat  

• A vegan Bourguignon for a new consumer occasion  

Instead of competing with one another, these products could form a connected range. 

Each would answer a different need while remaining recognisably part of the same culinary world. 

The reformulated recipes also created the possibility of a shorter and more direct ingredient declaration. 

The flavour came from fermented plant ingredients, vegetables, cooked yeast, herbs and spices rather than a long collection of separate flavour-building components. 

This matters because consumers increasingly want to understand what creates the taste of their food. 

A clearer list does not automatically make a product better. But when it reflects a well-built recipe, it can create greater consistency between what the product promises and what it contains. 

The project showed that reformulation does not have to be defensive. 

It does not need to begin and end with the removal of an expensive ingredient. 

When the process starts with flavour, a business constraint can become a creative brief. 

The question changes from: 

“How can we make this recipe cheaper?” 

to: 

“What do people truly love about this dish, and how can we deliver that experience differently?” 

That is a much more useful starting point. 

Although the application was Bœuf Bourguignon, the lessons can be applied far beyond one recipe. 

Before changing the formulation, define what must remain true. 

Is it the roasted character? The creaminess? The richness of the sauce? The fresh finish? The comforting feeling of a slow-cooked dish? 

“Keep the flavour” is too broad. 

A clear sensory direction gives the development team something concrete to protect. 

Removing an expensive ingredient can affect flavour, texture, appearance and consumer expectations at the same time. 

It should therefore be treated as a complete culinary project, not as a purchasing exercise. 

The strongest reformulations do not simply replace the weight that has been removed. They rebuild the balance of the entire product. 

The original brief may be about cost, salt, sugar, meat or a complicated ingredient list. 

But solving that challenge can reveal a second opportunity. 

A renovation project may become a new plant-based product. A label-simplification brief may lead to a more distinctive flavour. A cost-saving exercise may create a stronger portfolio structure. 

Good development answers the current need. 

Great development also shows what could come next. 

A product can be more affordable, more scalable and easier to explain. 

But it still has to be delicious. 

Taste is not the final decorative step in reformulation. It is the standard against which every other decision should be measured. 

The Marie project succeeded because cost reduction was never allowed to become the only objective. 

The dish still had to deliver. 

The Marie project began with a familiar challenge: beef was an important part of both the product and its cost structure. 

The initial solution could have been limited to reducing the quantity of meat. 

Instead, the project created two development routes. 

The first protected the existing proposition while offering a significant cost opportunity. 

The second translated the same culinary identity into a completely vegan concept with the potential to extend the range. 

Both versions were designed around the qualities people expect from Bourguignon: depth, roundness, balance and the feeling of a dish that has been given time. 

That is the real result of the project. 

Less meat did not have to mean less flavour. 

A clearer ingredient story did not have to mean a simpler eating experience. 

And cost pressure did not have to limit innovation. 

It became the reason to innovate. 

Every product has something that must remain true. 

It may be a familiar flavour, a specific texture, a signature finish or the emotional connection people have with a classic recipe. 

That is where meaningful reformulation begins. 

Bring us the dish, the business challenge and the experience that cannot be lost. 

Together, we can explore how to reduce costs, rethink ingredients and create new possibilities, without compromising on real flavour.