Making biscuits

I made three of the flavours to see how they tasted. I made the Chocolate Chip, Rhubarb and Cinnamon and the Orange and Dark Chocolate. They turned out delicious, definitely something I would buy off the shelf. I used Whittakers Chocolate as it is made locally here in Wellington which reduces the food milage of the final cookie product.

Logo Feedback and Idea Adaptation

After showing the logo designs to the class we received feedback that perhaps the design wasn't quite working with our idea. The design was too commercial and didn't really make people think of cookies or seasons. The brand name also didn't seem to be working as Corner Stores reminded the class of greasy food in an urban environment.

We realized that a lot of work needed to be done and have come up with the new brand name "Local Pantry". It definitely sounds much more home made and with local in the title it links directly to the use of local ingredients in our biscuits.

Logo

After coming up with the name Corner Store which to me conjures up feelings of a community, food, perhaps a small town which relates well with our brand. Below are a few logo concepts we came up with.

Idea Tweaking

After pitching our refined idea to the class we received some valuable feedback that caused us to re-think our idea a little. The issue that continued to arise when receiving peer feedback was the fact that we would only ever have two flavours on the shelf at one time. This could cause us to lose to our competitors Farmbake, as they always has several flavours on the shelf at one time. To combat this we decided to create a second all year round flavour to add more variety to our selection. The two all year round flavors we decided on were Oat and New Zealand Bush Honey, and Chocolate Chip. The seasonal flavors are as follows:
Winter - Rhubarb and Cinnamon
Autumn - Feijoa, Sunflower Seed and White Chocolate.
Spring - Orange and Dark Chocolate.
Summer - Strawberry and Boysenberry

Refined Idea

Our idea is to create a new line of biscuits to rejuvenate Ernst Adams Brand. We are going to do this by focusing on the micro trend of food miles. To tackle this micro trend we have decided to create a biscuit range that relies upon local seasonal produce to cut down on food mileage used to import produce that is not in season. Because our biscuit idea relies upon the seasons we decided to create a range with 5 different flavours. There will be one flavour for each season and one that is all year round. The Flavours will only be available during their season. We will design the flavours to accompany the season’s conditions, temperature and comforts we crave during each season.

Food Miles Research

Food Miles is a Macro trend which focuses on looking at the distance which food has to travel to get to our supermarkets. It originated in the UK in early 1990's by Professor Tim Lang. It is one factor used when determining environmental impact of the foods.

Here is a small example of household goods which are from all parts of the country.

To react to this Macro trend we looked at Seasonal Fruits and discovered which fruits grow and ripen in each season.

All Season: Apple, Bananas

Summer: Apricots, Blackberries, Blackcurrents, Blueberries, Boysenberries, Cherries, Grapefruit, Strawberries, Raspberries, Watermelon.

Spring: Oranges, Tamirillos, Tangelos.

Autumn: Figs, Fejoas, Grapes, Kiwifruit, Limes, Nashi, Passionfruit, Raspberries, Tamirillos.

Winter: Fejoas, Mandarins, Grapefruit, Oranges, Persimmons, Tamirillos.

Our initial Flavour combos are

All year round: Banana Choc Chip

Summer: Strawberry and Boysenberry

Spring: Tamirillos and Orange

Autumn: Passionfruit and Lime

Winter: Cinnamon and Fejoa

We will receive feedback on these in class so that we can see if our concept is working.

Earnst Adams Research

Earnest Adams is New Zealand's leading sweet baked brand offering consumers a range of delicious baked gods available through grocery outlets.

As New Zealand's favourite bakery brand it provides delicious sweet alternatives to baking with ready made treats including: cakes, desserts and christmas baking. The range includes: slices, loaves, cookies, eclairs, brandy snaps, meringues, profiteroles, cakes, sponges, puddings and tarts.

Earnest Adams biscuit range is clearly targeting people who want home baked style biscuits with the convenience of not having to bake themselves. If people were after decadent biscuits and weren't bothered by it being homemade or not they would be more likely to buy TimTams or Toffee Pops etc.

The Macro trend of buying natural, clean and healthy may well work in favor with bands like Earnest Adams and Farmbake as their products market themselves as being just like home made. "Home made" has healthy, fresh and quality ingredients connotations attached which appeals much better to this market trend then other decedent biscuits ranges as aforementioned.

I think there is definitely room for improvement for Earnest Adams and Farmbake cookies in order to better appeal to this move toward clean, healthy eating. Perhaps more emphasis on the natural which opens an un-met niche in the market.

First Class

During this class we got straight into thinking of the 'Big Idea'. As we got brainstorming on key 'Macro Trends' that are happening at the moment we discovered some interesting ones. Organic food is a very popular macro trend at the moment as we see a lot of brands moving their focus towards a healthy, locally produced market. We then thought about the Food Miles concept, which focuses on how far our food has had to travel before we get it at our supermarkets and purchase it. We thought this would be a successful macro trend to focus on.

Food Miles Idea: as we got further on in our brainstorming we came up with a draft idea to create a biscuit range which comes in seasons. As there are 5 flavours we would have one continuous flavour which perhaps contained an all season fruit and maybe chocolate, and then each other flavour out of the 4 we have left would only be able to be brought seasonally. Such as the Winter biscuit, possibly warm flavours such as cinnamon and fejoa/persimmons.

Here is our brainstorming in a visual form that we did in class