13-14th week ~~~Final Presentation

Final week of the food product development will end with a final presentation to present our product from scratch to the final product. First phase of food product development will be the idealization of the product concept during semester 5, and prototype production would be the final semester.

Content of the presentation would be all the necessary information and process of the food product development on how to develop a product and test it out on the market. And also to showcase our product =P... and get feedbacks on further improvement on our studies. In future studies, we would be glad if we are able to modify our product towards a healthy direction and also a lower cost for our dumpling product in terms of packaging. Also to have machinery to facilitate on our products as manual handling will not be as accurate as machinery and to achieve a consistency as well.

Finally, acknowledgement to a very noble and sweet but scary lecturer Dr Chong for giving us endless patient and SCOLDING to enables us to perform better in our task. =) Thank you so much ahhhh. And of course, My classmate especially my Dumpling Group mate for collaborating with each other and work together to achieve the same result, which is SUCCESS. Goodluck in your futures and always be proud of what we did. =D   

so cute arrr ChonPling hahaha

12th week ~~ Marketing Strategy

During this week, we were required to conduct a promotional campaign selling our commercial product to promote and spread the awareness on our dumpling product to allow more people to aware on our dumpling products. We are required to produce a large bulk of dumpling and sell it in order to allow people to know about our product and the taste of it. 

Marketing strategy is essential in food product development to enables profits and business to the company and provide a good reputation to the company. Good marketing strategy will minimizes cost and brings in profit for the company. Marketing strategy consist of 5P's.

1.Product

2.People

3.Place

4.Price

5.Promotion

Product value propositions is essential to be known to up sell our product, People will be known as target market whereby we need to determine which target consumer that we are aiming to sell to. Place would be the location where we place our dumpling production. Price would be the selling price of the commercial dumpling product after calculate the cost and profit. Promotion would be the advertising technique to allow more people to know about our product. One of the technique is through media networks, creating sell sheet and also promotional campaign. 

In between 9th - 11th weeks Packaging

During these weeks, we are required to produce a packaging for our frozen commercial dumpling product and for the promotional campaign of the commercial dumpling product which will be held on the week 12th. Packaging is essential to act as a protection barrier and also provide nutrition information to the consumers as well.

Methodology of packaging design prototype.

We have finalized the concept of the packaging for frozen product and promotional campaign before we select for our raw materials used for commercial product packaging which is polystyrene plastics as inner layer and white paperboard as outer layer of packaging. Materials chosen was based on the type of storage condition of the product and the type of food product and also the characteristic properties of the materials.

Front Packaging of outer layer

Back Packaging of outer layer

Inner layer of packaging

In food packaging, it is essential to label the required information based on food laws and regulations to ensure consumer to obtain the correct nutrition information and allow consumer to gain more understanding on the product.

~~ 7th week - 11th week Sensorial test & storage study for Gold standard dumpling and Commercial dumpling product~~

This week, we are required to conduct an sensory test on  Gold standard dumpling and Commercial dumpling product to compare the two products and which one is better. We are required to find 20 different panels to conduct the test at Thyme restaurant. Objective of comparing both gold standard product and commercial product is to find out the similarities and differences between the two products and feedback on the products as well.

Chart comparison between gold standard and commercial product

After sensory, we found out that all of panels prefer commercial product more than the gold standard dumplings. Furthermore, they felt that there are significant differences in terms of texture and taste of the dumplings based on result of hedonic test. Commercial product have a juicier and softer texture compared to gold standard product

We were required to conduct storage study test on gold standard and commercial product as well in terms of water activity, moisture content and texture profile analysis (TPA) to determine the shelf-life of our product and also to compare the differences between gold standard and commercial product during storage study in terms of the taste, appearance and texture for both products for 4 Weeks.

It appears commercial product  have a better and brighter green colour compared to gold standard whereby it has a dull and dark-ish green colour. This is due to the technical ingredients added which retain the colour of the spinach even though it has been stored for few weeks. Water activity of commercial product is lower than gold standard same as moisture content due to the addition of technical ingredients. Hence commercial product is able to store for longer period compared to gold standard.

TPA test =P