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