TruEarth Healthy Foods

TrueEarth Healthy Foods is faced with some serious management decisions regarding refregerated pizza with some complications originating from the company previous operations. Chief dillema in the management decisions regards the neagtive campaign implicating pizza to be harzadous to human health. The company in general is faced with a tidious task to develop pizza that eliminates all health risks and follow it with ambitious plan of advertising to alter people’s attitude towards the product. These are serious management decisions which require extensive research and investement on the part of the company.

The second management decison regards beating the already competitive market dominated by companies like Nestle and Kraft who are already in the business of producing low cost-frozen pizza. This complication has resulted into a luck of consensus amongst  the company managers with Roise Carlton leading the pack of disatified managers on the company involvement in refregerated pizza business. The company is therefore faced with a problem of choosing the best strategy to change consumers’ mindset on the health implications of pizza while at the same time working hard to occupy a significant portion of the market dominated by big companie such as Nestle and Kraft.  

In line with the above management decision problem, appropriate marketing research is vital and should focus on two important parameters of in-depth concept survey which will evaluate consumers awarenes on the companies products, and the product usage research. The product usage test is vital in determining the actual proportion of consumers ready to use the new whole grain pizza from TrueEarth and not from competitors like Nestle. Such kind of marketing research is by all means necessary to alleviate all the doubts that has dogged the minds of various managers on whether the new refregerated pizza will be a force in the market. Moreover, testing consumer awareness on the product concept is significant in knowing how well to tackle the health risk that has been assoxiated with frozen pizza.

To put the whole marketing research into specific perspective, a well refined research questions should be developed and must be seen to be consistent with already identified knowledge in the form of hypothesis. The first research question would go as follows: Have you ever used fresh pasta before?

The general assumption is that consumers who have used fresh pasta in the past would generally have a higher rate of awareness on refregenerated pizza. The reason being that these two products are much more related and any consumer using one of them is likely to be aware of the other as one can be substituted for the other. This kind of hypothesis is surpoted by the already existing company data which shows that 13% of consumers in TrueEarth’s priority cities are reported to have used cucina fesca pasta, and BASES study on behalf of the company also supports this fact with 11% being reported to have used the product in the past one year. Basing on these statistics, it becomes apparent that there is a likely chance that consumers will adopt the refregerated pizza should all other factors remain constant.

The second research question will involve the usability of the product. This will go as follows: Are you likely to adopt the new refregerated pizza in your meals? The usability of a product reflect the sales volume likely to be derived from the sale of the product throughout the year. It is important to note that the usability of a product depends to a larger extent on customer awareness of the product, hence being that the issue of awareness is likely to be adequately adressed in the first research question, this second research questions therefore will provide adequate sales projections. From initial surveys done by BASES on behalf of TrueEarth, sales projections are estimated to be to a tune of 58.8 million. It is this kind of projection that the research needs to focuss on so that its feasibility can be authenticated.

Having known the implicit research questions to be directed to major consumers of the company products, it becomes more realto measure their responses on measuring scales. One of the best instruments to be used in this scenario would be the Likert scale. The likert is one of the formal tools used to order respondents answers. The Likert scale would appear as follows:

From the likert scale given above, the lead researcher will be able to determine the direction people are likely to take once the product is brought into the market. Information obtained will there be instrumental in coming with broad strategy to tackle consumer demands.

Measuring of consumers abstract ideas can also be done using semantic differential scale. Semantic differential is used to measure the meaning of issues or things that essentially have a connative sense. This scale would appear as follows:

Rate the viability and usability of the new refregerated whole grain pizza using the laid down semantic differential:

                        Healthy____________   ____________ Harzadous

                      Enjoyable____________   ____________ Boring

                             Good____________   ____________ Bad

                          Tasty____________   ____________ Bitter

The scale above can also be used by the management to detect the real consumer attitude towards the company product. The variables in the scale might look abstract but they provide important insight on what actually happens in the ground.

Staple scale can also be used to determine consumer preference concerning refregerated whole grain pizza. Generally, the staple scale in this instance will be used to further interogate the likely attitude company customers. As such, this scale will help extensively in determining the real intensity of customers’ attitudes which can be either positive or negative depending on the circumstances. Staple scale will therefore appear in the format below:

When thinking of whole grain refregerated pizza, do you think that TrueEarth Healthy foods will provide the tastiest as well as healthy product? Using a scale of +5 to -5, rate this statement with +5 strongly agreeing and -5 strongly disagreeing.

(a)    +5 Strongly agrees

(b)   +4

(c)    +3

(d)   +2

(e)    +1

(f)     Agrees

(g)    -1

(h)    -2

(i)      -3

(j)     -4

(k)   -5 Strongly disagrees

From the scale above, important clues can be derived which as already said can be useful in determining where the company needs to do more in order to win the hearts of pizza consumers. Where the response is towards negative five, it becomes apparent that the company needs to do more and perharps change its strategies. When the response is positive five, the reverse is obvious.

Having drawn the kinds of scales to be used in measuring consumer preferences concerning new refregerated pizza, a formal questionnaire can also be used to provide important information vital for making strategic decisions by the company managers. The questionnaire would look as follows:

Questionnaire:

1-     Have you ever used pizza before? (Tick the box where appropriate)

(a)    Yes           (  )

(b)   No            (  )

(c)    Unaware    (  )

2-     If yes in (1), which kind of pizza was it?, (please list below)

3-     Have you ever heard of TruEarth Healthy Foods?

(a)    Yes  (  )

(b)   No    (  )

4-     Have you ever used any product from the company?

(a)    Yes (  )

(b)   No  (  )

5-     Do you prefer whole grain foods?

(a)    Yes  (  )

(b)   No    (  )

6-     Which type of pizza don you prefer?

(a)    Frozen pizza   (  )

(b)   Refregerated Pizza  (  )