Ensure you’ve reflected on data collection and visual/financial modeling completed by the team.

• In the financial model, the material cost is shown as the price bought in bulk and after a discount. This ensures that we profit most from selling our product and minimizing material costs.
• The materials that cost the most are peanut butter and the dumpling skins. I was unable to find peanut butter sold in bulk through various websites and shops, which meant that we could not push the cost down for the peanut butter+chocolate flavored dumplings.
• The dumpling skins in the model were the cheapest premade skins I could find online and offline. We have considered making our own dumpling skins for our product, but that meant more time and effort spent making each dumpling, so we gave up on the idea and stuck with premade dumpling skins.
• Both models use data from surveys that were sent out before.

Do you feel that your product has met the goal you set at the start of the process? Did design choices still fit your target audience? What would you do if you had more time or resources?

• I would say that our group was successful overall. I think the intended consumers have shifted from an international market to a more American market; however, our aim has not entirely shifted. The three final flavors we decided on are more American-based: Pizza, cookies and cream, and peanut butter+chocolate. Even though the three flavors are directed to the American market, pizza is an Italian food, which still connects to the international food part of our original goal. If we had more time, we would develop different flavors from different regions of the world to satisfy the international market. We might also continue with the dessert dumpling sauce idea and create a sauce that would fit our dumplings. We dropped the idea of different textured dumpling skin at the beginning of our project. If we had more time, I believe it would be nice to pick up the idea and have a mochi-textured dumpling skin for the Japanese market or a crunchy taco shell dumpling skin for the Mexican market.

How would you evaluate your contribution to the team? Anything you’d like to work on in terms of teamwork?

• I have made my contributions, and so has everyone else in the group. We all complete the jobs according to our roles. As a team, we have done well; however, I think we could have worked better together. We spent most of our time working on our own tasks and rarely cooperated with each other. Although we all had specific tasks we were working on, I believe our project would have been better if we worked more as a group instead of individually.

What progress has your team made so far? Have any new ideas, questions, or challenges arisen from this work?

• After testing some dumpling ideas last week, we spent most of our time designing our package, collecting data on consumer surveys, and financial planning this week. After testing and tasting the dumplings, we thought we could add a sauce for our dessert dumplings, just like how you would dip regular dumplings in vinegar or soy sauce. The more successful dumpling flavors were the chocolate ones and the peanut butter ones. The lease successful flavors were the mixed berries and the nut dumplings. The mixed berries dumplings were too sour to fit for a dessert. We tried adding sweet chocolate to moderate the sourness, but it had little effect. Unless we used artificial flavors for the mixed berries, we would be unable to produce a mixed berries dumpling filling that fits the word “dessert.” The nuts-fillings were too dry for a dumpling, so our group gave up on the idea. The food product development project has been smooth sailing; there were no major challenges that we encountered as a group.

What progress have you and your group made in collecting data? How was it collected? How has that supported your design choices?

• We sent out a survey for consumer choices. The survey was a paper survey, and we only made people in the school do the survey. Most of our replies were from high school students, which might have affected our results. Because this survey was sent out during class time, we had limited replies, another factor affecting our results.

• After collecting data, the top three flavors consumers wanted were Chocolate+Peanutbutter, Cookies and Cream, and Pizza. 
• Most consumers would like to have the product sold in a supermarket.
• 15RMB is the most common price in our survey.
• 6 dumplings per box occurred the most in our results.
• This survey helps us with our packaging design as it helps us understand what customers would expect when they think of dumplings.
• This also helps us with marketing. It provides a brand name favored by the majority and helps us with pricing.

Have you (or your teammates) worked on visual or financial modeling? If so, provide some insight into those processes.

• The survey helped us with our modeling. The financial model shows us the material cost and profit for each dumpling flavor.

• The survey also helped us design our logo and packaging for our product. Our brand name, “Blissful Bite Delights,” is the most suggested name from our survey. Most of our product decisions depended on the survey we sent out: the finalized flavors, the amount of dumplings in packaging, and the packaging colors.

 

 

 

What is your product idea, and who is your audience?

• Our food product for this project is dessert dumplings. With Asian dumpling skins and international fillings (fillings from different parts of the world to satisfy different people), we aim to sell our product to everyone (the international market). Another potential audience is kids. Kids are more likely to be attracted by sweets. Desserts warped in dumpling skins can attract kids’ attention and make their parents buy the product. Kids can also easily convince their parents by claiming that it helps them learn about different food (dessert) cultures around the world.

What are your plans for data collection and modeling as a group or individual?

• We plan to send out a questionnaire about potential flavors for the dessert dumplings, which will help us collect data from our target audience. We will also make a visual model of our product, including our logo and packaging for our dumplings. In addition to the visual model, we will also include a financial model to show our material cost, selling prices, and the profit we make.

What is your role in the team?

• I focus on the financial planning part of the team. I will make the financial model, keep track of the material prices, selling prices, and how we market our product. I focus on financial planning but also work on other parts of the project. Everyone in the group comes up with dessert filling and dumpling skin ideas. In our first week of the project, we came up with various ideas and tested some dumpling fillings to see how they worked with traditional dumpling skins. We thought of mochi skins instead of plain dumpling skins. For fillings, we thought of mixed berries, chocolate, peanut butter, nuts, fruits, and flavor themes, such as tropical flavored, refreshing flavored, and winter flavored.

What are some potential challenges you may run into over the next 2-3 weeks?

• For the next 2-3 weeks, we will focus on coming up with new dumpling ideas/test dumpling flavors. I need to work on the cost analysis worksheet; we need to send out a survey and start our packaging model and marketing plans.

Trying out different ways to prepare dumplings and different fillings: