Free worksheet · FoodEdge Decision Labs

One decision. A clearer next step.

Map what must be true, what your evidence supports and what would change your mind. Use the worksheet with one product, application and target market.

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This framework organises a decision. It does not certify technical readiness, regulatory compliance or investment quality.

01. Name the decision

We need to decide whether to

Decision date

Resources and commitments at stake

Customer, application and target market

The current alternative

02. Map the evidence

For each gate: what must be true; the evidence and its limit; status (documented, partly supported, no evidence yet, unknown); and the next check. Reference the actual document or test.

Application: Does the evidence answer the intended product question?

Scale: What changes beyond the laboratory?

Requirements: What must be resolved before this sale?

Adoption: What would make a buyer accept it?

Economics: What does an accepted product cost?

Next commitment: What should happen before you commit?

03. Challenge the preferred answer

The strongest argument against our preferred option

The assumption with the largest consequence if wrong

The evidence that would change our mind

The work we would postpone to make this commitment

04. Choose the next check

Priority gap and the test or check

Comparator and acceptance condition

Owner and review date

Continue, redesign, pause or stop: the condition for each

Decision now, with the reason and next review trigger

Fictional teaching example

A larger campaign, or a smaller check?

This invented example describes no real company, customer, experiment or regulatory status. Its conditions are teaching assumptions, not technical thresholds.

An ingredient team is deciding whether to commit to a larger production campaign for a bakery application. It has a laboratory result and a cost model. It has not agreed a buyer's acceptance criteria, scoped the sale requirements for its market or shown that recovery assumptions hold for an accepted final ingredient.

The preferred option is to scale immediately. The alternative is a smaller application and process check. The strongest objection: more output will not resolve whether the ingredient works for a buyer or can be supplied under the applicable requirements.

Buyer acceptance: agree the intended use and criteria, then design a suitable comparison.
Recovery and economics: trace the model to accepted product, including losses and utilisation, then examine sensitivity.
Requirements: ask a competent specialist to scope the intended product, use and market.

Decision now: pause the larger commitment pending those checks. This does not establish that the business is unviable. It identifies what the current evidence cannot yet justify.

The team must name the owners, review dates and precise conditions itself. The worksheet cannot invent them.