Valeriana

Financial Model:

I have made a poster showing the financial model and explaining the reason I chose the recommended sales price. The creation of the financial model involved the recording of prices of each ingredient, and also finding unit costs of each ingredient (cost of the ingredient in one s’more) by figuring out the amount needed and dividing the total cost of one pack by the ratio of the total amount per pack sold and the amount used. The recommended sales price was first determined by a recommended percentage that was research but altered to fit the target audience. This was determined through a consumer survey, in which we surveyed possible target audiences (young adults).

Design Choices:

I feel like our product definitely met our goals, since it did generally follow our plans and sketches that we made at the beginning and created a product that tasted good. In which following our plans would enable a good fit for target audience that was determined prior to making our product. However, there were slight changes in our design choices, we first planned on choosing one cooking method of the TangYuan and one flavor. We did end up choosing to fry the TangYuan to add texture and flavor, but we kept all of the Tang Yuans flavors, since we found them all tasty. This would widen our target audience, since more flavors would be able to meet more preferences of different audiences, so this change did help us with our product development and would bring more business and profit.

Changes:

If we had more time, we definitely could have done more research regarding the costs of labor for making these, possible marketing costs, and costs for having a little stall at a night market. This would have helped with deciding an even more accurate recommended sales price. Another factor that could be considered would be product packaging and marketing measures, since our group did not focus much on the marketing prospect of this product. It would also be beneficial if we used nutritional value more in our business plan, specifically it would be suitable as a measure for marketing, suggesting to the audience that our product isn’t as unhealthy as people may think.

My Contributions:

Due to time constraints, our group decided to split up roles but also work on making samples of the product together. I focused on the financial plan and recommended sales price, in which to find the recommended sales price, I worked with Jia to derive a possible sales price from the consumer survey. To find the total cost of 1 s’more, I worked with Lilian to find how much of an ingredient was used.

Progress: Successes and Challenges

Our team finished taste testing for different flavors of Tang Yuan s’mores, and we have all agreed that putting chocolate in s’mores with red bean paste and black sesame Tang Yuans would be too sweet, as a result, we have decided to only put chocolate in s’mores with peanut flavored Tang Yuans. This would better fit a wider range of audience, attracting audiences who like sweet desserts and audiences who may not be major fan of overly sweet desserts, since an audience who like sweets may purchase peanut-flavored Tang Yuan S’mores, in which the chocolate not only offers sweetness but also works well with the peanut flavoring in the Tang Yuan. We have successfully finished recipe development and are currently working on nutritional research which is attached below to the blog post.

FD- nutritional facts

Recipe Tang Yuan S’mores

Progress: Model

I have finished the financial model for the Tang Yuan s’mores and am currently finding a suitable percentage range for revenue and recommended sales price, in consideration of factors such as consumer age range and wage, setting for sales, production prices, and competition. The recommended sales price will be determined after Jia finishes her consumer survey, in which results will be analyzed to find an optimal price range for our target audience of teenagers and young adults. Attached below are the production costs of the Tang Yuan S’mores.

Tang Yuan S’mores Cost Analysis Spreadsheet copy

Progress: Data Collection

We have done taste tests during product development to figure out which method (boiled or fried) would taste best and alter our recipe accordingly. We have done the taste test within our own group, where we gave a rating out of 10 (10 is the highest) for each variation of the sample. This taste testing helped support our design choices since it helped us figure out the tastiest variation, since we had 6 at the beginning, and it helped us connect the product to the target audience better through collecting preferences since our samplers were basically our target audience (age-wise). We had a smaller survey sample size since there weren’t enough samples for a major sample size, which could be considered a limitation of taste testing.

However, we had a larger sample size for the consumer survey on consumer interest in buying our S’mores which makes up for a small sampling group for the taste test. The consumer survey is currently in progress, but the survey would help support and alter our design choices of the current recommended sales price determined through a suggested percentage of revenue that has been researched. This would help us better determine a suitable price, since the percentage of revenue researched may not consider our target audience; thus, this helps us determine a better price range. The survey also helps us further determine consumers’ preferences on the food itself, asking for preferred textures and flavors, thus making up for a small sampling size on the taste test.

Product Idea and Audience:

Our product idea is to replace the marshmallow in s’mores with a Tang Yuan. The Tang Yuan s’mores are a fusion of international and Chinese culture, Tang Yuans are a traditional Chinese dessert eaten during the Lantern Festival, whereas s’mores are a popular campfire snack in America and Canada. This fusion of traditional desserts would attract a wide variety of target audiences since it could attract consumers from both Western and Chinese cultures who are curious or seek new food experiences. Our product will be sold at a street food vendor since street food vendors are currently popular and would attract more consumers who are curious about new food ideas, this would also be good for foods fusing International and Chinese culture since it wouldn’t be considered “overly sacrilegious”, and consumers would be better at accepting new foods. Thus, derived from the product idea, our audience would be teenagers and young adults, since the consumer would technically be more open to new ideas.

Plans for Data Collecting & Modelling:

We are currently planning on making the Tang Yuan s’mores and doing a blind taste test to see which flavors, amongst red bean paste, sesame, and peanuts, would taste better; however, this would only be done with a small number of testers (people from our group). We are also planning on doing a consumer survey to collect a larger amount of data, with 40 people to get more accurate data. The consumer survey would include photos of the product that we made for taste test. For modeling, we will be doing a financial model for the costs of one s’more and finding the recommended sales price in acknowledgment to competition, rent, labor price, cost, and revenue.

My Role: 

I will be primarily in charge of the financial model and will also be helping Lilian in making the product.

Challenges:

Our main challenge is finishing making and taste testing the Tang Yuan s’mores on time. We are planning on having 6 variations, with 3 flavors of Tang Yuan: red bean paste, black sesame, and peanuts, and 2 methods of cooking: frying or boiling the Tang Yuan. We will be making 4 trials for each of the variations since we have 4 members in the group and each of us will taste test all of the variations. We will need to be clear on the recipe and procedure of making Tang Yuan s’mores and we will need to multitask to finish making all the Tang Yuan s’mores in one kitchen session.

I have finished “It Ends with Us”, and am currently reading “Into the Water”.

The book “Into the Water” had a very interesting and creative use of language, it takes the readers through the story through different perspectives and diaries and books of characters. There are also many uses of language techniques to create vivid descriptions of each character’s feelings and of the pool (an important setting related to the story) which makes the book more intriguing and the language unique.

I am surprised by how the author of “It Ends with Us” incorporated the issue of domestic violence so naturally. The author also uses language to describe the main character’s opinions and development through the conflict of domestic violence and makes both exterior and inner conflicts seem realistic and complex.