MARKET RESEARCH REPORT

SWEET FROZEN FOOD MARKET

Name: NIM:

Binus University
2019
TABLE OF CONTENTS

Preface
1.1 Introduction, Background, and Objective

Literature Review
2.1 Definition of Sweet Frozen Food
2.2 Benefits of Sweet Frozen Food
2.3 Quality of Sweet Frozen Food

Research Method
3.1 Method Used
3.2 Data Received

Result and Discussion

Conclusion

Marketing Plan
6.1 SWOT and STPD
6.2 Marketing Plan

Bibliography
Attachments
 CHAPTER I
PREFACE

1.1 Introduction, Background, and Objective

Sweet ​frozen food market is a market that based on people who find pleasure in eating
sweet foods and because sweet frozen food is a practical food, it also provides convenience for
people to consume it. In fact, sweet frozen food is a ​deep fried and sweet snack that can deliver
to customer in frozen condition, so customer can fry them at home and consume them at their
best. ​The market of this business can be online and physical, in the beginning, it started mostly as
a physical store or we known it as a snack booth, café, etc. However as technology advanced
more and more, it expanded into online shops that makes customer become more easy to get and
consume it. ​In this market, the main selling point or product is deep fried food. There are some
sweet frozen food companies out there that already leading this kind of business either in
physical or online store.
The most famous and well known sweet frozen food company until now is ​Sukanda
Djaya Company with their famous brand which is “EDO” that sells frozen food like mantou,
pizza base, puff pastry sheet, etc. Sukanda Djaya Company is Indonesia’s largest refrigerated
food and beverage distribution company, and a leading importer of frozen, chilled, dairy and dry
food and beverage products. ​EDO is really famous and well-known because it sells the products
in supermarket like Giant, Hypermart, Food Hall, and many other supermarkets that makes
customer can directly buy the products. However, the products that EDO sells are very rarely
found in online shop especially its own official online store. Besides EDO, there’s a new arrivals
brand named “Roticoklatku”. Roticoklatku is a homemade frozen food products that focused
their products in online-selling since 2015. Roticoklatku is well-known and famous because it’s
utilize Instagram platform to target its market and promoting its products. Roticoklatku has so
many varieties of products, but its chocolate-filled deep fried bread is the signature product that
Roticoklatku has. Last but not least, there's also a lot of company out there with their own
characteristics & specialities that's also competing in the sweet frozen food market right now.
 These days, people have different aspects that greatly affects their preferences on what
kind of foods they like to choose and usually they choose them depending on their needs. For
example, people want something that is more practical foods because nowadays they’re become
more busy to prepare food by themselves. However, they still attach importance to find a food
product that also provides a good taste and high-quality products. That’s why customer’s
preferences is a really important things to do in order to find out some factors that can affect their
buying and choosing decisions. Customer preferences also important for other frozen food
companies in order to find out their customers requirement in buying products so that they can
develop the products to increase the selling numbers.
In this paper, I'm going to research and explain about the customer's preferences in the
sweet frozen food market. By using some questionnaire that will reveal some aspects that affects
customer’s preferences. It can be known about does customers really like and attract to consume
deep fried, sweet food and wanting them to come in frozen so that they can cook it anytime they
want. Besides, it can be figured out about the price that fits with the customer’s preferences. The
main purpose of this research is to know about customer’s preferences on the sweet frozen food
market.
 CHAPTER II
LITERATURE REVIEW

2.1 Definition of Sweet Frozen Food

Sweet food is a type of food which is not salty, sour, or bitter. This type of food has the
taste characteristic of sugar. In hence, sweet food is made from cream or milk, and often has
additional flavor such as chocolate. People usually consume sweet food as feeling of enjoyment
which facilitated by the same morphine-like biochemical systems in the brain (Goldstein, 2015).
The preservation of sweet food can be in many ways, one of them is by freezing it first.
The freezing food is preserves from the time it is prepared to the time it is consumed, and it
needs to be fried or steamed before consuming it. Freezing is an activity of food processing that
lowers the temperature to inhibit microorganism growth (Britannica’s editors, 2018). The growth
of microorganisms doesn’t continue if the temperature of the food is below -9.5 °C, and this
causes prevention of food spoilage. It also prevents the growing process of most bacterial
species.
The existence of frozen food occurred because of Clarence Birdseye, whom is
well-known as the father of frozen food. This man figured out the logistics of selling frozen
foods, like the fastest way to freeze the food, the packaging of the frozen food, and how to
deliver the product (Staff, 2014). In the 1912, Clarence Birdseye started to figure out how to
make frozen food when he was a young engineer in Labrador who often froze his catch after to
fishing due to kept it safe. He discovered that the frozen fish was still delicious even though it is
thawed few months later.
From this, Clarence Birdseye made a theory that food must be frozen quickly to maintain
the quality of the taste and texture (Library’s Science Reference Services, 2018). Apparently, his
thought was true. This came along with the comparison before the existence of the
quick-freezing food. The food was used to froze slowly and made the form of large ice crystals.
By the time the food is thawed, the large ice crystals melted, and water would leak out which
took the food’s flavor and texture.
 By all of the discovery that Clarence Birdseye has made, he developed double-belt
freezer. It was recreated the nature’s freezing process and increase its potential (Frozen Food
Foundation, 2019). In 1930, he introduced to the public about his first frozen food and the frozen
food industry.
Up to these days, frozen food develops by being able to be in many types of food. As
mentioned in the previous paragraphs, sweet food can be froze before being fried or steamed in
order to be consumed. Now, people can often find some companies that produce sweet frozen
food, for instance Roticoklatku and EDO. The idea of freezing sweet food has expanded into
various kind of food, such as fried chocolate banana, fried or steamed mantou, fried bread, etc.

2.2 Benefits of Sweet Frozen Food

There are a lot of benefits that consumer can get by consuming sweet frozen food, such
as:
1) People Need Sweet Food
People need to consume sweet food, because they like the characteristics of the sweet taste.
There are reasons why people like sweet food. The taste of sugar feels so good due to people’s
brain that release serotonin which is a contributor to feeling of happiness and beta-endorphins
which act as pain-killer, when they eat something sweet. Also, sweet food can become
something that help people to control their stress and mood (Kushare, 2015). The sense of people
liking for something sweet is reinforced by the effect of nutrition, as the source of energy
(Drenowski, Mennella, Johnson, & Bellisle, 2012).

2) Having Portion Control

Frozen food is often sold in a portion size. This can be beneficial for consumer in order to
control their food portion, so that they are able not to eat too much (Lentz, 2018).

3) Prevent Food Waste

By consuming food that being froze first can reduce the amount of wasting food. People can put
their food in the fridges to keep it not expired, and still can enjoy it at a later time (Smithers,
2012). Therefore, people might reduce the waste of expired food, which lead to save money too.

4) Flexibility
Having frozen food able people to cook it anytime they want. The food will be kept in the freezer
until people ready to cook and consume it, which means that people can keep the kitchen stocked
with food (Wiltshire, 2018).

5) Doesn’t Change the Food Value

Freezing food will not give any effect to the amount of fat, protein, carbohydrates, and sugar of
the food. So, people will consume no many differences between frozen or not frozen food
(Lehman, 2018).

6) Like Snacking
The sweet frozen food is the solution for people who like to snack something sweet but can be
consumes anytime they want to cook it. Also, it is an easy way for the to prepare the food,
because it only needs to be fried or steamed.

2.3 Quality of Sweet Frozen Food

The quality of sweet frozen food depends on the freezing. It needs to be froze with the
right ways such as high-pressure freezing and using ice nucleation proteins to improve or quicker
the freezing process (Gupta, Dudeja, & Minhas, 2017). He fast freezing will give better quality
of frozen food rather than the slow freezing. The consideration of the ice crystals size, cell
dehydration, and damage to the cell walls are very important. If the freezing rate or the freezing
process can be done in a perfect way, the quality of the frozen food still can be maintained after
it is being thawed (Rahman, 2007).
 CHAPTER III
RESEARCH METHOD

3.1 Method Used

In This Research, the method that we’re using to get the data (responses) about
customer's preferences in deep fried and sweet snack is by using online questionnaire (survey)
which is by using Google Forms. The Google Form Questionnaire consists of 13 questions
which filled with 6 common questions (name, gender, age, id line, instagram account, and
domicile) and 7 main questions which filled with topic and research related questions. The
Google Forms Questionnaire was start being shared on 10 April 2019 and it's mostly being
shared to social media, especially LINE, and mostly it's being shared into friend and family
groups. The minimum target of this method is 100 responses.

3.2 Data Received

From the Shared Questionnaire, we received 146 responses although only 145 of them
are valid because one of the participants filled the questionnaire wrongly.
From the Data, it can be seen that the participants genders are almost balance between female
and male with comparison 3:2 which is 58.2% out of 146 participants for female and 41.8% out
of 146 participants for male. It also can be seen that most of the participants are mostly between
12-19 years old which means they are still in college or school. For the Domicile that written in
the Google Form is really broad, but mostly in Alam Sutera, Serpong, and Jakarta.
 CHAPTER IV
RESULT AND DISCUSSION

From the research that has been conducted, it can be concluded from the data that has
been obtained about customers’ preferences in the deep fried, frozen, and sweet snacks market
and about what factors they consider the most in choosing & buying in the market. To figure that
out, we first try to find out whether our customers enjoy snacking or not as the very basic
question.

From the data that has been gathered, it can be inferred that most of the customers do
enjoy snacking, with 91.8% out of 146 respondents or 134 people saying 'yes’ and 8.2% out of
146 respondents saying ‘no.’ The possible reasons behind the massive amount of people that
enjoy snacking is that snacking is an activity people find pleasurable to do while bored, stressed,
and feeling any type of negative emotions. From health perspective, there are numerous reasons
that can contribute to how prone someone is to snacking. For example; diabetes, anxiety, and
depression among other things. Another strange yet common reason is dehydration, and that
people often confuse this thirst for hunger, thus referring to endless snacking. All of this doesn't
necessarily mean a bad thing, since snacking is a form of meal replacement.
 Next, we try to find out whether these people like deep fried and sweet snack, which is
the category our product falls into. The result shows that majority of the customers, precisely
80.8% or 118 respondents say yes, while 19.2% or 28 respondents say no. A lot of people seem
to have a preference towards sweet snacks, and that can be explained scientifically since there is
a specific hormone in human body that sends signals of sugar cravings to the brain. As for why
we like fried food so much, it's because of the fat in it. Fat has an appetizing texture and smell to
it that draws us to them.

Another question is how often do our customers consume snacks in a week to measure
the possible frequency in which our product could sell. Most of the respondents, specifically
63% or 92 people, say that they consume one to three snacks in the duration of a week. The next
majority is the 24% or 35 people saying that they eat snacks four to six times a week. There is a
small portion of customers, 11.6% or 17 people, who eat more than six times of snacks per week,
and lastly there are only two people who never even once in their lives eat snacks. What is
considered healthy is two snacks each day as long as it’s nutritious and not harmful for the body,
so snacks like fruits and nuts are a good option for day-to-day snacking while less healthy
options like fried, sugary foods are suitable for occasional treats when you are craving for it,
since eating it everyday might harm our health.
 Next, we ask the customers about their preference on quantity of the goods they buy,
more specifically whether they would like to purchase snacks in a bundle containing various
types of snacks. The results are 62.3% or 91 respondents saying yes and 37.7% or 56
respondents saying no. On a day to day basis, we often see indecisiveness occur on many
different activities, including buying a snack. Sometimes we want to eat churros and bread, but
buying a full pack each of the two would be too much and result in food waste and unnecessary
money spent. With bundles, these issues could be combatted, because a bundle contains a
collection of different snacks that you can choose from, with controlled portion so you don’t
have to worry about not being able to finish them all. As a result, you don’t pay for items you
aren’t capable of eating. This is the type of mindset that most of the customers seem to have,
based on the results.
 We would also like to figure out if the customers would like snacks that come frozen, that
way they can cook it anytime they want so that it’s always freshly made every time. Results
show that it’s almost split in half between the two options, with 56.8% or 83 respondents saying
that they want frozen snacks while 43.2% or 63 respondents say that they aren’t interested in it.
The popularity of frozen food continues to grow each year, the reason being that it’s convenient
and ensures the quality of the food, which is what our product is trying to achieve.
 We then ask the respondents if they would be interested in purchasing our product, which
is a frozen, sweet snack. When the results are in, we can see that a high percentage of the results,
specifically 82.2% or 120 respondents are interested in buying our products while 17.8% or 26
respondents, not so much. Here, we can conclude that even though only 118 respondents say
they like this type of snack, more respondents, specifically 120 respondents, are interested in
purchasing our product.

Lastly, we ask the customers about their preferred price range for this type of snack,
when it comes in a bundle. The results are most of the customers, 62.3% or 91 respondents
would be willing to pay IDR 15.000-25.000 for this snack, 26% or 38 respondents are willing to
pay less than IDR 15.000, 10.3% or 15 respondents would be willing to pay within the range of
IDR 26.000-35.000, and lastly 1.4% or 2 respondents would be willing to pay more than IDR
36,000 for this type of snack.
 CHAPTER V

CONCLUSION

From this market research about the customers’ preferences on frozen, sweet snack, there
has been gathered some substantial points that can be beneficial for future references when
creating a new type of business, which are:

1. The market consists of almost equally women and men but mostly women, within the age
range of 12 to 19 years old and living in Alam Sutera;

2. Most of the customers enjoy snacking;

3. Most of the customers like frozen, sweet food for snack, indicating that the market
condition is good and strong enough;

4. Most of the customers eat snacks one to three times a week;

5. It’s rare for customers to never eat snacks at all;

6. Most of the customers prefer to buy snacks that come in bundles containing various
snacks;

7. Whether or not customers prefer snacks that come frozen is almost split in half, but more
of them would like frozen snacks;

8. A large number of customers would be interested in buying frozen, sweet snacks;

9. Most of the customers would be willing to pay the mid-range price for the snack, which
is IDR 15.000-25.000;

10. There is surprisingly only a few amount of respondents who pick the lowest range of
price, which is below IDR 15.000;
11. The price range which has the least amount of interest is the highest one, which is more
than IDR 36.000;
 CHAPTER VI

MARKETING PLAN

6.1 SWOT & STPD

SWOT ​(FROM THE PERSPECTIVE OF COMPANY & SELLER)

Strengths :

- Quality and price that are balanced to ensure customers attraction for purchasing the products

- Affordable price makes the product become preferred

- Price worthy since the product is made from a good quality ingredients

- Strategic location placement (fewer competitors)

- ‘One of a kind’ snack (unique)

- Products which are vary from just one place

- Delivery service or mailings are provided

Weaknesses :

- Few platforms in doing marketing promotion

- Price can be easily affected by economic condition

- Excessive consumption that can cause health issues

Opportunities :

- Large population

- Growing demands

- Easy to be improved or modified

- Lower competition in the environment

Threats :

- New entrants or competitors

- Customers preference which can easily change from time to time

- Quality downgrading

STPD ​(FROM PERSPECTIVE OF COMPANY & SELLER)

Segmentation

- Geographical : Serpong and Alam Sutera

- Demographical : Male and female, age ranging from 12- 28 years old

- Behavioral : People who are interested in sweet cuisine (street snacks)

- Psychographical : Lower, middle, high class (any economic status)

Targeting :

- Teenagers (12-19 years old) until adults (20-28 years old)

- Influencers (as platform in promoting the products)

- People who are enjoy sweet fried snacks

- People who are most likely want to serve their food in a practical way

Positioning :

By selling price worthy product to the customers with affordable price and good quality
ingredients to achieve customers preference. Therefore, customer can easily remember the
product right after they made their purchase.
Differentiation :

- Through quality and price of the product (affordable, price worthy, good quality ingredients)

- Provides variety and choices of sweet frozen snacks for the customers

- Unique concept and provides exclusive variants of products for the customers

6.2 Marketing Plan

Overall, from the Conclusion, SWOT and STPD, The Marketing Plan that can be used to
increase the customers preference and to increase the product sales

- Setting the affordable price, not too high and not too low

- Doing more promotion of the product towards the targeted people

- Increasing the quality while maintaining the price in an affordable level

- Adding more variants and choices of products for the customers

- Expanding the market area so the product can be easily found

These marketing plans can be used by businesses to get more favor from the customer,
increase sales and being more preferred by the customers. Seller can also understand about what
and how to sell the products to the customers. Therefore, making this plan surely will help in
achieving business objectives.
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