Soup House: New Product Development and Business Analysis

The relationship or bond between customers and owners impacts the way the customers buy food that how much they like the provided services and products. Their way of purchase of food in restaurant helps to predict others the quality of food served. As in our soup house variety of soups are served to customers according to their tastes they like.

One of the trends in the soup market is that the customers who use to consume especially old age and health conscious people who want to maintain their diet for good health. It has been that the demand of soups has increased in recent years and is expected to grow at a CAGR of 2.9% during the period 2018-2023. The demand for convenience foods is one of the key factors driving the growth of the soup market. The global soup market recorded total revenue of USD 9,187.42 million in 2016.

However, many companies are making packed soup which is less time consuming for making food but the ingredients used are not fresh and is contained in frozen areas which is much dangerous for health. Whereas, in our soup house the ingredients used for making soups are grown by own and herbs used are rich in flavors which provide unique taste to soups and another deterrent is the inability to control fat intake while consuming canned soups. As from the research it can be seen that the demand for soup has increased like in European region held the largest market share in 2016, followed by Asia-Pacific and North America.

In Europe, countries like Spain, the UK, and France possess greater market share due to the demand for higher value chilled soups and better packaging. In developed countries, large numbers of health awareness campaigns have resulted in the demand for packaged soups that contain fresh ingredients and fewer preservatives. In North America, the soup market is expected to grow at a CAGR of 1% during the forecast period. A growing demand for high-quality meals that can be prepared at short notice has also helped the growth of soup market in Europe.

“Soup house” is a destination where we provide food that is good, honest, authentic and flavorful – made from ingredients that are grown, prepared, cooked or baked with care. We believe that our food fits our customer’s real lives, fuels their bodies and feeds their souls and believes in building long lasting relationships.

Strengths

• Freshly prepared
• Organic products used
• Locally served
• Highly Skilled Workers
• Affordable prices
• Accessible to local people
• Perfect for health conscious people
• Wide variety available for vegan and non-vegan.

Weaknesses

• No recognition
• Limited market Knowledge
• Preference of soups
• High price
• Location access.

Opportunities

• Potential market
• Distribution of products
• Expansions in market
• Existing competitors may exit market due new serving techniques.

Threats

• Competitors
• Experience in business
• Difficulty due to new entrants into the industry
• Changes in social trends and preferences

Competitive Analysis

Our competitors are those who serve healthy food even are close to our soup house as they serve at almost same place and having much of the stuff same as ours. Many of the restaurants in surrey are serving healthy food as the idea of serve healthy stuff is already there in the market.

Competitors

• Pho Newton is one of the restaurants which is serving a number of soups both veg and non-veg even they are serving closer to our location and charges the customers almost the same as ours.
• Original joe’s restaurant & bar is an another choice for the consumers as they also serves soups but they were not considering the perspectives of health even offers soups for a very high prices.

Target Market

Our market strategy covers a larger consumer segment as it includes variety of customers and offers a variety of products to meet their preferences. Our market targets mainly those who are health conscious and now a day’s people care more about their diets one technical report says that “Most British Columbians considered their eating habits (73.7%) and health (78.6%) to be very good” (Dr. Drona Rasali, 2013) (htt1) And “Most British Columbians (71.8%) indicated that they had improved or plan to improve at least one aspect of their eating habits in the past 12 months” (Dr. Drona Rasali, 2013) (htt1). So our main objective is to serve healthy food and we select this market as it has a high scope of good business and it ensure the present wants of customers.

Our Typical Customers

• Senior citizens
• Tourists
• Sick people
• Health conscious

Marketing Objectives

Every business either small or large set their marketing objectives to achieve the goal. We also set our objective for the ‘Soup House’ business. Our main objective is to increase sale, build high quality relationships with customers and expand our business in other cities of British Columbia. So, to achieve this long term objective we also set some short term goals.

Short term objective- within 5 months after launches our business we want to increase our sale 20%. To reach this goal we will make many efforts like we will setup our soups stalls in famous festivals such as Fusion festivals, South Surrey Community festival. Each year 70,000 people join these festivals. We can increase our sale 8-10% with this way. We will also sponsor some charity events to promote our business like GONE COUNTRY ~ HERE FOR THE CURE~ cancer benefit. So after 5 months our sales will go up to 20%.

Long term objective- we will also make good relationships with our customers by listening their queries and by solving them. We will ask their feedback and analyze every month customer’s response.

Marketing Research

We will make research about customer’s preference about soups. We will use primary and secondary methods of research for this. Primary research- to know the customers like and dislike us will conduct qualitative and quantitative research. In qualitative we will use focus group method because it is more informal and includes observation. It would be a small interview with 8-10 people. Questions may include like:

1. What does u think about soups?
2. What do you like best about soups?
3. What problems do you see in soups?
4. Which type of soup you would like to eat?

Other method that we can use is web survey because web surveys have been steadily growing. We will analyze the response of customers on mail, phone and online. Online has relatively high response than other methods.

• Mail 2-3%
• Phone 12-15%
• Online 40-45%

Product  Strategies

Soup House is established on delivering excellent homemade soups at excellent speed in order to meet customer’s expectations regarding taste, appearance, service, and temperature. Taste is a key to attracting customers to the store, and our homemade recipes (with fresh herbs, organic veggies and naturally raised meats) create the best taste. Our master chef ensures every soup delivered to customers is of high quality with a unique flavor. The soup’s presentation enhances its appeal, so that each soup has to be served in elegant bowls with fine cutlery. While our chefs make sure that every soup looks good, we also ensure that the crockery must not be cracked or stained.

In the restaurant industry, service is as important as the food itself. Soup House has a policy that customers have to be served within 5 to 10 minutes; otherwise, the soup will be free. All the ingredients of the soups are listed on the board, (which is located, near the entrance), so if anybody has any allergies they can avoid particular soup. The soups are also prepared in such a way that there is no cross-contamination between vegetarian soups and non-vegetarian soups, assuring the clients who don’t eat meat due to their religious beliefs or personal preferences that their soup is vegetarian. Our restaurant offers flexibility in placing an order through three different options: in-restaurant, online, or by phone. The soups also should be served at an appropriate temperature. The right temperature is very important for soups for two reasons; hot soups always taste good and if soup is cold it kills its authenticity and taste.

To maintain the consistency of the service and quality, it is very important to monitor it. In Soup House, we use the following techniques to do that

• Empowering employees
  • Give employees the right to act and make a decision in a particular situation on behalf of soup house.
  • Ask employees for their feedback from time to time and make changes according to that information.
  • Give the employees bonuses if sales exceed the target at the end of each month.
• Customer feedback
  • Check online reviews. Customer criticism gives information how to improve the service better.
  • If a customer is dissatisfied then provide them either a free coupon for their next purchase or a meal replacement at the moment.

Soup House is carrying specialty and convenience products; primarily these products are unique soups. The prices of the soups are not that expensive, and most people can easily afford it.

• Breadth of Soups
• Depth in Soups Vegetarian Soups Non-Vegetarian Soups
• Lentil Soup Chicken Noodle
• Broccoli and Cream Beef Stew
• Chickpea soup Clam Chowder

Distribution Strategy

It is necessary to get the right product to the right customer, in the right quantity and at the right time (Grewal, et al., 2015). The target market of the soup house is the senior citizen, tourists, health conscious and sick people. As most of our customers are seniors, so they feel difficulty to reach soup house thus our soup house additionally offers free home delivery within ten minutes or food are going to be freed from price and to try and do this we take the assistance of social media as a result of, we have a tendency to use skip the dishes website and other people place their order thereon and their worker return to our search and deliver the correct order to the correct person. By doing this we also increase employment opportunities in the local area. We will use a thermos for delivery purpose because the quality of the product is our number one priority.

Our delivery bags in which soup is poured are made of aluminum foil which helps the soup to remain warm for hours and what is more, our delivery charges are going to be reasonable as compared to our competitors, within the range of 5 km we have a tendency to offer free home delivery. Per tin foil will cost us $0.25 as we order them in bulk. We have a tendency to additionally pay attention to various economic sections of the society. Our small size is extremely low cost, therefore everybody will simply purchase it, and moreover, we have a tendency of providing one soup freed from the value on the acquisition of each 5 soups. We tend to even have a good atmosphere in our edifice; individuals will pay hour’s thereby observing TV and paying attention to soothing music. We will change our ingredients according to customer demand and our product will be organic. Soup house will largely use B2C selling however it may also use B2B as a result of there are some business organizations like hospitals and firms that wish their soup to be provided from the soup house because of its price and it is totally organic.

Promotion

Healthy products are always in demand just we need a proper method to let people know about it and a right way to interface our product to the people. Soup house will use a variety of best mediums to reach its desired proportion of the population as it is clear that the best products and services will go unsold if marketers can’t communicate their value. Soup house will use strategies like advertising, sales promotion, and personal selling with a motive to persuade folks to shop for our product. We will chiefly target the spiritual television programs to reach to our target market of senior citizens.

They pay most of their free time on TV or in parks so we will also put banners with health benefits of eating organic soups within the main parks of the town. According to our primary plan, we will spend $4000 on banners and near about $20000 on TV advertisement. In addition soup house will use social media for advertisement like YouTube, Instagram, Twitter and WhatsApp to target tourists and children; furthermore, we will also take the advantage of native events like fusion festival to deliver our new product into the market with an excellent pace. Soup house will also issue soup card to its customers, by that they can earn nine points on every purchase and by earning ninety-nine points they will get a free medium size soup.