Most of the food products in the UK are Merchandized side-by-side. The range of products within this Company should be designed to assist consumers and enable them sell the product to friends through word of mouth. This can be achieved by the vegetable section through improvement in the quality of frozen products.
They should market the product in such a way that allows consumers to have complete selection of vegetable products from the range provided. There should have been press releases from the introduction of the product to offer advice to consumers on t ways they could combine these vegetable products to conveniently provide a complete meal. These details are not provided for within Innocent Company’s product portfolio (Charlet and Henneberry, 1992).
There is huge demand for certain qualities like freshness and convenience within the UK market. The vegetable products should be provided in an easy to carry boxes and provided in a way that enables easy assembly for a complete meal. The container used for packing allows for quick freezing and slow defrosting.
This makes it difficult to target areas where consumers are always in a hurry, this innovation has however not been provided for within the market scope for the product. The product should not only cater for Obesity as a disease, but should have the ability to protect consumers against the risks of cancer and heart diseases which are more prevalent in UK population (Charlet and Henneberry, 1992).
Innocent company have not focused on the strong connection between market orientation and the company’s innovativeness. Basically the quality of the vegetable product being launched has got nothing unique compared to those already within the market. They focused much on the packaging of the product and less focus on the product quality.
This can be seen from their product definition where the focus is on the size, price and packaging material. On the satisfaction of the customer needs the product is to only address obesity, they have the target of appealing to broader audience while not addressing some health risks such as the prevalent heart diseases. These are the issues consumers look for and are willing to pay attention to during the marketing of the vegetable product (Charlet and Henneberry, 1992).
According to their forecast, the best way for Innocent Company to ensure that hypermarkets increase the market share of frozen food, is by the company providing the products together with their own company branded refrigerators. The focus element of the Company’s market orientation cannot impact its performance since it sounds the same as that of their competitors.
Innocent Company should also focus on talking to consumers directly rather than through retail customers since this will give them clear consumer preferences. It seems Innocent Company have wrong focus with the frozen vegetable product in the customer orientation scale. The supply channel in this case should be more focused on the end user not on the customer in the name of wholesalers or retailers.
The questionnaire samples should have been sent to more than 50 potential customers. This is so as to consider the effects of bias and late responses. The study should be based on mail questionnaire survey sent to potential consumers and some other food processing firms.
The Company’s approach to data collection may allow for inflated responses from respondents. To avoid this Innocent should use self-reported firm financial performances. The marketing research profile should be able to identify a number of responses across different product categories; they should have further used primary market channels to be served by the frozen vegetable product.
The company has its focus mainly on its main competitors and the market share they command, these are; Permira (15.5%), Northern food PLC (6.3%) and Young’s Bluecrest (5.4%). For profitability to be realised the company should focus more on the general food Industry and the vital changes in the market trends.
This will make the company focus more on how to improve internally as is the trend in food industries. Market orientation is a very important aspect for any food processing Company since it incorporates the dimensions concerning competitors, customers and communication links (Charlet and Henneberry, 1992).
The proposal did not also focus on the effects of market drivers within the vegetable sector. There has been tendency of consumers shifting to fresh vegetable consumption rather than frozen vegetables. Variety of flavour offered by Innocent in some frozen food products is considered appropriate since it contributes towards acceptance by the consumers. However, the containers used for frozen vegetable should match present lifestyle of consumers within different market segments.
According to the market trends consumption of frozen vegetable in UK is stagnant; this is because of the high competition experienced from the fresh vegetables. The proposal should focus on how to target consumers who nowadays look for easy and simple ways of making complete meals. They should have also catered for the perception consumers have on frozen vegetables which acts as barrier towards the sale of products (Feig, 2002).
The proposal should however be more focused on the value of the product, since this is the only opportunity that can be utilized for the growth of the industry. The statistics shows that more sales are realised from the 500g pack, this means that consumers prefer buying large quantities of the frozen vegetable. However, this product cannot be sold in bulk and there is also high competition existing for retail stores.
This makes shelf space to be so limited, hence requires Innocent Company to device other marketing strategies for marketing their products. They can utilize the use of channels such as hotels, restaurants and other food service points. For quick sales to be realised the company should device technology that will enable consumers quicken the process of preparing frozen vegetables (Feig, 2002).
The target market provided by the proposal, which is between 18 to 38 years, will not yield required results. This is because according to the market statistics, aging population are the main potential users of frozen vegetable. This means that the available sales strategies should provide for the ability to penetrate many market segments for sustenance purposes.
The focus of the proposal should be in building product brand and increasing the consumer loyalty towards the product. There is need for thorough promotion activities from the Company down to retailers, this will enhance customer loyalty. The proposal also has got wrong perception and estimate on the number of people per household that should be targeted; currently there are so many families with more than three people.
Hence the frozen vegetable should have been provided in packs of more than 500 grams. This is revealed by the number of sales realised from the largest pack. The food industry is usually reorganized depending on the family sizes; therefore one of the future concerns of the company should have been on family growth (Charlet and Henneberry, 1992)
They should have focused more on the use of convenient stores, install small refrigerators within so as to increase the channels of their distribution and maximise on on-the-go consumers. The proposal should focus on how reputation of the company should be maintained based on excellence of service and quality of products.
The diversification of the market helps in maintaining good customer base, this works well with future focus on intensive research and development. This is a prerequisite in identifying the customer tastes and can even expand their resources to accommodate all age groups.
Price control is also one of the major factors that determine whether customers are going to pay their loyalty to Innocent Company’s frozen vegetable brand. Increase in prices will of course make clients to shy away from buying the products. The company need to work out on their business models through appropriate segmentation to enable them work comfortably with the changing market economy.
Professional training of the employees on the marketing and sales strategies needs to be given much attention. The firm at the same time need to diversify its sales in order to cope with the consumers changing trends on tastes. These other food products must be accompanied by quality services including reasonable prices (Feig, 2002).
The proposal does not cater for shopping habits which are reflected based on several factors some of which include; importance of product information, the enjoyment that goes along with shopping, pricing, the nature of advertisement used and people’s reactions towards it. Population in the UK does their food shopping based on its quality health- wise, tastiness and freshness.
The product portfolio given reveals inadequate information about Innocent frozen vegetable, there are no provisions for product information that includes ingredients and the benefits of using the product. However, the strength of any company lies in its ability to stage unique capabilities in such a way as to convey strong attributes that can lure consumers to pledge their loyalty to the firm. This can only be achieved by building a strong image in the brand name.
The image helps in promoting and selling the company by making it easier for the consumers to understand the products and the values the company propagates. Research has proved that image is very useful in marketing and also in the process of production. Company’s good image can make it record high sales within the market despite other shortcomings (Feig, 2002).
Reference List
Charlet, B. & Henneberry, S. R., 1992. A profile of food consumption trends and Changing market Institutions. Web.
Feig, B., 2002. Value Isn’t Just about Price. Frozen Food Age, 50(6), p. 24.