I read Jason Coyle's comment with growing frustration ('Want innovation? Then put product before categories', The Grocer, 26 ­August, p24). I believe category management is the greatest single barrier to innovation in the grocery industry today. While it helps to develop existing categories more efficiently, it makes it incredibly hard to create new ones.

Big companies are structured to maximise efficiency. This means that their entire business system is geared towards maintaining the status quo, and anything that falls outside the norm is automatically rejected. Major manufacturers' innovation processes prevent radical new ideas seeing the light of day.

Apply fresh thinking. Challenge the narrow category dogma. Remove the straightjacket. Then we might see some genuine innovation.