RL 1411124-141201 Beta (better) concept

Last post of the year! and I didn't even realise how much I've done throughout this semester. Tasks came one after another, leaving us no time for a breath. I know I've been complaining a lot this semester, maybe that's my way to get motivated, but what I wanted to say was I learnt a lot, and I felt that I am now closer to what I want to do.  

Lesson 6: No more lessons! duh, I need a rest.. =P

The final task of the semester was to decide two beta concepts. Beta as in beta software, refers to the last test version before launching of the product. That said, our beta concept shall also be the final concept for our product before we decided to work on it and launch into the market. Hence, we must really make sure that the product meets the needs of the target market, can be produced, and most importantly can fulfill the aim of this project that is creating a healthy meal with functional ingredients to curb childhood obesity. 

So, we first reviewed all our findings since the first study, listed out all the requirements we deduced. Then, we match the requirements with the 5 alpha concepts we have now and check which of the ideas fulfilled most of the criteria. That narrowed us down to the final three products: beetroot and pumpkin burger, mini crispy spring roll, and pizza roll. 

Beta-concept 1: Beetroot and pumpkin burger

Beetroot and pumpkin burger was the most attainable product since burger has always been popular among children and the nutritional value of the product could easily be modified into a balanced diet. Hence, it became the first beta-concept. The patty was decided to be sous-vide instead of steamed to retain the phytochemicals in the vegetables as the nutrients can normally loss under high heat treatment. 

We had a tough time deciding which remaining product shall become the 2nd beta-concept since we thought both had equal potential. After a good 30 minutes of debate, we finally decided to forfeit pizza roll because the carbohydrate content was hard to play around, and the product seemed a bit too normal. However, we merged the spiral idea with the spring roll to get our 2nd beta concept, spiral spring roll. 

Beta-concept 2: spiral spring roll

This spiral spring roll will not be baked but steamed since parent prefer their children to eat steamed food. So the outer popiah skin was removed so that the colourful vegetable layer can attract the students more. The skin has yet to be decided whether it will be in the form of vegetable leather or a carbohydrate based skin,but since this spring roll doesn't have carbohydrate component anymore, chances are the skin being made with starches and vegetables. The chicken/prawn/fish mousse was also changed into minced chicken with sweet and sour flavour, which was another feature in the pizza roll. This was because the children had mentioned that they like sweet and sour, and at the same time, the parents did not want overly processed food product. Finally, another layer of vegetables consisting carrot and turnip is added. This is to create visual appeal by creating a spiral texture, while at the same time add more fibre and vegetables to the product (one children mentioned he wanted more carrots). We found that  children accepts eating vegetables even though if it's not hidden when it is in a popiah form.

So that's the two beta concepts we decided and brought to the final presentation. We prepared the slides as usual thinking that we finally finished another assignment. But guess what? Since this was our final presentation, we had two external judges! I was dumbfounded, tbh. I didn't expect Dr. Wendy and Dr. Nima there to assess our final presentation. Nervousness kicked in me and we did not manage the presentation well. Too long an introduction and due to time limit, we did not have the time to properly present the second alpha concept. However, we managed the Q&A fairly well, at least the judges were not as snarky to us as they were to other groups. Guessed maybe other group's performance were really unorganised that they save us a life. LOL! Anyway, both judges chose beetroot burger in the end.

So that marks the end of food product development (don't remind me of the thesis! shhhhh) We have yet to decide which beta concept to go with as for now, since we equally liked the idea, but we have three months to think through.. so yeah, stay tuned for my update and I shall see you next year!

Dong signing out!

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RL 141117-141124 Domain 5: Concept acceptance

Depressing week, I was so desperate that it was depressing, the comments we got were also a little discouraging that it was depressing. Being a group with only 'foreigners' and the least workforce, this is the first time I felt that we are really at an disadvantage. But, hey, we made it at last! I accepted the fact that we are really at an disadvantage but that shouldn't hold up our progress, so yeah, I regained my momentum and here we are, completing this domain nonetheless... =D

5 stages of grief, a.k.a. the stages I've been through over and over again throughout this semester.. xP

Lesson 5: "The acceptance of certain realities doesn't preclude idealism. It can lead to certain breakthroughs" -- Rem Koolhaas

Okay, so this domain was called concept acceptance, and we were to interview parents and children on their opinion with our 5 alpha concepts. Why concept acceptance? The answer has been mentioned before this and is pretty straightforward though: to test if our concepts could be accepted by the target market. What's the point of selling a product that nobody wants to buy because they could not accept/understand it? So, to get to that point, we used the most direct method, which is reaching out to the target market and get their responses on the product. We interviewed three children and three parents for their feedback, plus a nutritionist for her professional view. 

The process to get these interviews was very challenging to me. We started with interviewing schoolchildren. By right, this shouldn't pose any problem as everything has already been arranged. All we needed was to wait for the children to come in and we could start the interview. However, it so happened that the school was having an event on that day and it took us too long for the first two interviews, so by the time we were about to interview the third student, there were hardly anyone available already. We started searching for lone souls floating around the school campus and finally found one. But only to find that he could barely understand what we said so he couldn't even express properly. So, we thanked him, sent him off, and continued our mission to find another interviewee. Thank goodness the next one who came to us was a bright student. He was really good in expressing himself and gave us many constructive feedback. And with that, we ended the first part of our interview. But the challenge did not stop coming, bigger ones were approaching. 

So as I mentioned before, all of us in the group were from outstation, staying at places resided by a majority of college students. No relatives, no neighbours  with schoolchildren to interview. So our only hope was to interview the staffs on campus. I started sending invitations to all the contacts I knew the moment we got our task. None replied until 1.5 weeks have passed, as it was a really busy week and all of them were not free. I was really desperate by then and I started bugging lecturers for their help. My teammates were not really of great help since we were all in the same shoes. But alas! Three parents finally agreed to be interviewed. So I finally felt relieved. But that's not the end, the real nightmare was just about to start.

The children showed great interests in our product and expressed their willingness to buy our product. However, the feedback from the parents were a tad discouraging. It was not that they could not accept our product but they thought the products might not be suitable for their children since it was highly processed and most of them were baked. And that really gave us a hard time interpreting the data. Not to say that we were discouraged by the negative comment, because to us, we should look into these weaknesses and correct it to increase the parents' acceptance. But because what the parents said and the children said was slightly different, and their preference were also different, we could not see the trend in it, and didn't know which side to take. Fortunately, we had a third opinion from the nutritionist, so we could utilise her view to calibrate the discrepancies between the children and parents. 

So finally, we managed to conclude that our products were on the right track as it could successfully attract the kids. However, it must also be improved in many ways especially in terms of nutritional facts and processing methods so that it could be accepted from the parents at the same time. 

My personal insight from this domain was that acceptance comes in two ways. First, on our hand as a food developer, we have to accept the critiques and needs from the target market. This, in turn, would lead to a breakthrough which produces product that could be accepted by the target market. 

By that, we completed all the preliminary studies for food product development and we shall make use of the data we found to create a marketable product. That brings us to the next step before the real product development starts, which is deciding two beta concepts to be developed. 

That's all for today, and I will have another post up soon, to sum up this semester. Hope you did not get tired reading my long-winded post. Here, please accept a virtual cookie as a token of appreciation for reading this. [::] [::]

Dong

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