Terra chips

Résumé du document

TERRA CHIPS, a USA-based company, founded in 1990, offers a wide range of vegetable and potato chips, which have created a new niche on the salty snack market. Terra has always had a tradition of creating masterful combination's of unique vegetables with a variety of fabulous flavors. So we are going to deal with this business case, in order to make you more familiar with this company. First, to define the framework in which the company is evolving, a SWOT analysis has to be carried out. Indeed, that will helps us find the internal variables of the company (its strengths and weaknesses), that is to say those under the control of the firm and the external variables (opportunities and threats) that the company has to face. The snack market as a whole is growing at some 5% a year. Certain sectors, such as meat snacks, yogurt and sugar – free candy, are experiencing much faster growth, while many of the most established product sector are seeing much more modest growth. There is an evolution concerning snacks: before they used to be only salty snacks, but today we can notice that specialty snacks, bakery snacks or sweet snacks appear. The healthy trend is certainly not the only trend in packaged snack foods, but it is by far the most important and widespread one, driven in large part by a heavy national focus on children's health. Although sales of packaged snack foods in the U.S. topped $61 billion in 2005, this is up only 6% over 2001 sales, since good returns from "healthy" categories like yogurt and fresh fruit have been mostly offset by losses in "less healthy" categories like candy and cookies.

Extraits

[...] By changing the lifestyles of the individuals, those ones don't want to taste anything else and as a consequence, we could talk of a Terra Chips community. People, indeed, meet themselves in a Terra Chips group, they enjoy a high degree of satisfaction. What is interesting today, is that new strategies appears, like contrary to the 4Ps: the 4Cs. The 4Cs refers to : -Customer (What is the added value for the consumer?) -Cost (What is the cost price?) -Convenience (What is the better access for the consumer?) -Communication (What is the better communication?). [...]

[...] Another way of distribution could be a partnership. That is to say that Terra Chips should find some posh restaurants or bars for the partnership and for example the restaurant or bar would suggest in its menus as accompaniment of a dish, or even for the aperitif the chips. Then at the time of paying the bill, the customer will find behind the counter some shelves with products of Terra Chips and could buy them. This partnership, if it is done with establishments very smart, could really enhance the value of Terra Chips. [...]

[...] These children spend, on average, more than every week on snack foods. The Shanghainese spend 9 percent of their total grocery bill on snacks. In supermarkets, snack food spending increases considerably as most meats, vegetables and fruits are still purchased in traditional outdoor markets called "wet" markets. Traditional Chinese snack foods were originally classified as either "wine accompaniments" or "food accompaniments" and included fried beans, nuts and tofu. The Chinese normally adhere to strict mealtimes, rarely skipping a meal. Snack foods are usually eaten on a whim or to satisfy an impulse. [...]

[...] Brands such as Mamee, Wangwang, Khongyuen and Oishi occupy significant shares of the chips and cracker segments. New products The Shanghai market is saturated with diverse products, and new product entry can be expensive. It is very important that marketers understand that Shanghainese usually try snack foods based on a whim. U.S. products can readily sell here. Pringles and Hershey's have used marketing and promotional techniques to achieve the sales they have today. So TERRA CHIPS can also try to enter this market but with marketing and promotional strategy adapted to Chinese habits. [...]

[...] They also can be against snacks, or they can go on a diet. Concerning the products: what types of products are sold? The salty snack food market includes potato chips, corn chips, tortilla chips, cheese puffs and pretzels. Potato chips represent the largest product class and account for 46% on a pound basis. Corn chips account for tortilla chips for cheese puffs for and pretzels for 12% of the salty snack food market. A lot of new products are launched every year on the snack food market (about 150), but most of them are failures. [...]