Which gluten-free products should Schaer launch on the Dutch market?

Which gluten-free products should Schaer launch on the Dutch market?

Spitaler, B.

Hultink, H.J. (mentor)
Calabretta, G. (mentor)
Gurschler, W. (mentor)

Industrial Design Engineering

Product Innovation Management

Master of Science Strategic Product Design

2012-10-23

This project aims at developing new gluten-free food product concepts aligned with the Dutch market needs for the Italian gluten-free food producer Dr. Schaer. Therefore, it is essential to identify and understand the needs of the Dutch consumers.The new gluten-free food products should deliver unique benefits and superior values to the consumers and differ from the competitors.The literature suggests that to create successful products it seems important to involve the consumer throughout the whole process.Therefore, in this project most emphasis is put on the identification of the needs of the Dutch consumers and how to translate the gained insights into new product concepts. The first phase of the project concerns the internal analysis that establishes the strengths and weaknesses for a new product concept development.The results of the internal analysis indicate that the strategic focus of the company possibly does not fulfill the demand and the needs of the Dutch market and that the current product offer does not completely satisfy the needs and the demands of the Dutch market. The second phase concerns the customer research. A qualitative research has been applied to reveal the needs, behaviors and opinions of the Dutch consumers. Through personal in-depth interviews it has been possible to gain insights in the purchase behavior and the satisfaction level of the consumers with the company and the products offered by Dr. Schaer.The outcome of the customer research provides the requirements for the new product concepts. The third phase consists of the external analysis and describes the environment of the company in the Netherlands. In this phase the competitive environment, and the trends and developments within the Dutch food industry are analyzed.This analysis leads to the opportunities and threats for new product concepts. The conclusions of the internal and external analysis and the customer research are summarized and evaluated through a SWOT analysis (phase four). The most relevant factors were selected and compared to each other. The analysis has been used to determine the challenge for which the new product concepts should be developed and leads to the description of the current situation that is used as the starting point for the fifth phase, the idea generation phase.To generate ideas and to come up with new concepts, an adapted ViP approach has been applied.The ViP approach is believed to generate innovative concepts and comprises several steps including different activities. These steps have led to two product concepts with variations, which then have been tested with the consumers through a quantitative research.Therefore, an online questionnaire was developed and published on the Dutch forum for celiacs. Through the analysis it was possible to select one concept which was finally improved based on the outcomes of the quantitative analysis.The last part of the project presents the final product concept and provides advices for the marketing and launch of the product to the company Dr. Schaer.

food industry
special dietary needs
gluten-free food products
customer research

http://resolver.tudelft.nl/uuid:8812ab6a-a30f-46ea-8c8d-5168d7dcea1f

Campus only

Student theses

master thesis

(c) 2012 Spitaler, B.