Week 3 - Define

Defining Our Product- Week 3

Define:

This week, our objective was to define our product. We need to define what ingredients will comprise our product and the market niche that it fits in. We have decided to have our product be present in the freezer isle in a fully cooked form that is ready to be reheated and eaten. This fits perfectly into an already established category of products present in stores, which allows us to take advantage where others have not capitalized on consumer desires. We have also finished our ingredient list, opting to use spinach as our stuffing and also adding spiciness to the finished product to increase consumer desirability.

What has your group accomplished during that week?

This week, our group finally finished our product. We decided on the final flavorings to be used as well as how the product will be presented to the consumer. We have elected to deliver our product in a fully cooked form that will be reheated in the oven by the consumer.

We also did a random sensory analysis of our finished products this week to determine consumer desirability. In every category except for texture, the fully fried product beat out the par-fried and baked product. We also got some good remarked about what flavors and colors the consumers would like to see that would make them more likely to buy our product.

What were the problems your group was faced with this week? How did they overcome and what was the result?

The big problem we faced this week relates back to the decision of how to present the product to the consumer. We were struggling to decide between par-frying the product for the consumer to finish cooking or fully cooking our product in the fryer and letting the consumer simply reheat it. After some discussion, we decided our product would be better if we shipped it fully cooked. We came to this decision after doing a little research on "appears ready to eat" products. Our product falls perfectly into this category because it looks fully fried and can be warmed to a desirable temperature easily, but may still have raw chicken inside, which can make someone sick. The result is a product that not only has a great color, but also retains its texture through freezing and reheating.

What objectives/milestones were not met and what is the plan of action to achieve those?

We were unable to accomplish a split sensory analysis using broccoli or spinach as our stuffing components. The sensory analysis we performed used broccoli as the stuffing but we used spinach in previous week, so we are well aware of the differences in the products. We have decided that spinach is more desirable to the consumer not only through previous cookings, but also because some of the recommendations we got were to avoid broccoli and use spinach. For the final product, we will use spinach.