New Food Product Development - Chilled Dessert For The Healthy Eating Sector

CHAPTER 1 INTRODUCTION

Aims and objectives of the product development project

The aim of this project is to design a chilled dessert for the healthy eating sector. It must have some nutritional advantages over other products available in order to achieve sustainable competitive advantage in the niche market.

As highlighted by Earle and Earle (1999) the product development programme encompasses product improvement, product line extension and product re launch as well as product innovation. Fuller (1994) added to these variations of a new product, he pointed out that re-formulation of existing products has a high probability of technical success. For this reason, this method of new product development was utilised in the project. It was decided to make a variation of a dessert that is not associated with healthy eating so the consumer can enjoy something which is usually associated with indulgence without feeling guilty. Therefore, the specific objectives for this project are as follows:

* Comparison of competing healthy eating desserts.

* To investigate the market potential for a chilled, healthy eating dessert.

* To assemble, specify, and test a process to produce the product.

* To assess the consumer acceptance of the product.

* To formulate a product that will meet the need of the specified market segment.

* To prepare definitive costings' and price the product.

* To plan the market strategy for the final product.

Methodology

Research into the principles and procedures of new food product development was undertaken in order to satisfy the aim of the project, this was done using books, journals and websites. Primary data aided the sensory analysis, this was completed with the use of questionnaires distributed a taste panel on 28th March 2006. In order to obtain maximum validity and reliability of the data, a cross section of males and females...