Fresh Grower business case analysis (Marketing Department)

Assignment Taken

Marketing Department : Propose the marketing strategy for the 2-year expansion plan of Fresh Grower. Special assignment: Prepare a marketing brochure for Fresh Grower.

Case Understanding

‘Fresh growers’ is a Pune based company whose business model is procurement & delivery of fresh farm produces. The business was started by Mr. Chitranjan Desai back in 2019. In the beginning he decided to get fresh supply of seasonal produce for his company and had a target to deliver the produce to consumer within three hours of harvesting. Although he was successful in getting some nearby farmers in his hometown to get the fresh supply that he needed, however there were some challenges that was not in line with his Company’s ‘Vision Statement’. The challenges that were faced by Fresh Growers are mentioned as below: Challenge 1: Meeting the Customer’s delivery expectation Mr. Desai had a vision of promoting the concept of ‘sustainable food’ that was freshly harvested and supplied for consumption. He had a clear concept clarity in his mind to create a market differentiation with his concept of ‘Farm to table’. The idea of ‘Farm to table’ demanded a lead time of 3 hours from the time of harvesting conceptually. However, in practice this was not the case at all. As per the real time calculations and with all the headers included (harvesting, packaging and transportation from the farm to consumer) he realized that 6 hours of ‘lead time’ was also difficult to achieve at times. Challenge 2: Demand based partial harvesting This was a challenge for Mr. Desai. His business model was most suitable for a demand-based harvest from the farmers with which the farmers were not in agreement. Challenge 3: Chemical based Post harvesting practices The farmers were traditionally using the popular method of early harvesting, and thereafter using various chemicals for Post-harvest stages (maturation and ripening). This was not inline with the ‘Company Vision’ that Mr. Desai had of delivering fresh produce directly from farm to consumer. Challenge 4: Pesticide free produce The farmers were not ready to use organic practices instead of using the harmful pesticides, urea and germicides. Challenge 5: Market positioning The marketing activities starting from social marketing, printed pamphlets to awareness campaigns failed to create the market differentiation that his company needed very badly. Their over-simplified subscription-based delivery system met with competition from local vendors, and other app-based services who claimed to provide similar quality of fresh produce. Apart from suggesting innovative solutions for the above-mentioned challenges, we also need to address the fact that Mr. Desai has plans to expand his business to at least 3 metro cities in the next two years.

BCS Solution Summary

The proposed solution from marketing department would entail a revision in market re-positioning of ‘Fresh Growers’ products which would in turn help the company to get into the ‘premium price’ pocket that this company needs for sustaining the business development. A re-branding of company with a ‘new tagline’ will help in developing the ‘brand-value-image’ of ‘Fresh Growers’ in the long run. New and innovative promotional strategies need to be in place along with well-defined new market segments that needs to be targeted further. 1. Marketing positioning strategy - The solution proposes a unique value marketing positioning strategy which will differentiate the ‘Fresh Growers’ produce in association with the competitive offerings in the existing market. With the existing business challenges and an expansion plan in pipeline the market positioning strategy that would be proposed by our consulting firm would be “more for more”. This positioning strategy of Fresh Growers products brings in more benefits for a higher price demanded from the customer. The product position would focus on a complete reorientation in lifestyle change bundled with a provoking thought process. This product position would compel the customer to rethink their buying decisions. Furthermore, the advertisement strategy related to market positioning of the product should be ‘An experimental approach’ which would bring in the much needed ‘brand image building’ of ‘Fresh Growers’ in coming times. 2. Brand positioning strategy - The brand positioning strategy would not be very useful in case of ‘Fresh Growers’, as the company is in their fairly early stage of business expansion. The brand position therefore will be in line with the market position strategy and it would reflect the same thought process of ‘lifestyle change’ of customers. A few suggested changes would be re-design of company logo, tag lines, #instagram feeds which would enable them to capture the much-needed attention of parents, kids and teenagers. 3. Promotional strategy – The existing promotional packages would be taken a notch up with focus on promotion of ‘farmer welfare community’, ‘organic food support community’, ‘seasonal and festive package sales promotions and much more. 4. Acquiring new target market - This would include explanation & logic behind the proposal for choice of locations for business expansion (3 cities). The target cities for expansion should be the ones where in there is a growing trend of demand for ‘organic fresh produce’. Further, a proposal of eligible new market segment – as for example tie up with restaurants, hospitals and catering companies could encourage a quick scaling of existing customer base. 5. Advertisement Strategy - The existing customer reach through social marketing, websites and pamphlets would be continued with addition of “Radio promotions”, “Farm tours & Farm festivals”. Innovative a

Solution

‘Fresh Growers’ has been successful in growing up to a moderate customer base of more or less 400 subscriptions in Pune till date. Their current marketing strategy has brought forward many direct and indirect hindrances in the form of process constraint and competitors.

A concrete marketing strategy should always address the following factors:

1. Strategy to deal with the Industry competitors
2. Take in factor the threat of new entrants
3. Try and increase bargaining power of buyers and suppliers
4. Take into consideration a threat of substitute product.

Current Situation Assessment:

Fresh Growers were a new entrant themselves: ‘Fresh Growers’ can be considered as a fairly new entrant (in the sector of Farm to Table) as this was a unique value proposition with respect to Indian population. It was itself a substitute product for the local vendors and app-based food delivery system, and they became an immediate competitor for them. Hence, just like any other market segment, Fresh Growers also had to face a tough competition from existing competitors in terms of price wars.

Fresh Growers strategy to deal with the Industry competitors: The enormous expenses that were related to company set up and sustaining the existing business was an additional pressure. However, ‘Fresh Growers’ had decided to cater to the ‘niche market’ which would handle ‘customers – with – a conscience’. They needed to approach the market with a ‘unique value proposition’ that would increase their bargaining power in terms of a seller and at the same time also somehow manage to cope up with bargaining power of the suppliers – in this case ‘farmers’. Further Mr. Desai’s plan to expand to 3 new metro cities demands for a quick buildup of a strong supplier base in existing and new cities, along with an innovative market plan to capture new customer base along with retaining the existing ones.

We will address the proposed strategy for market position, brand position, promotional approach, new target market acquisition and advertisement one by one in detail hereafter.

Proposed Marketing & brand positioning strategy

The positioning of organic food in the market can be considered as a ‘niche’ market. The product category – organic itself has specific qualities which defines itself as being associated with long-term health benefits which is usually sought after by most consumers.

Now, ‘health benefit’ in terms of a differentiation factor for product positioning is an intangible factor. The benefits are not visible on an immediate basis, and this gives a loop hole to other competitors for claiming a similar result on use of their product.

The word product positioning is related to painting a particular picture in the mind of a consumer. With respect to ‘organic food’ the immediate attributes that gets associated are:

1. Chemical free
2. No preservatives
3. Without use of artificial ingredients, and bad practices like waxing etc.

To summarize the term ‘organic’ when used for marketing and as and when related with food category is related to a serving the purpose of delivering health benefits but is more or less a long-term ROI promised to consumer:

1. Longevity with a healthy lifestyle
2. Anti – aging factors from aesthetic point of view
3. Tackling factors like obesity, BMI regulation etc.

However, there is a possibility of competitors for pitching their products in the same line.

Proposed Proposal for product and brand positioning:

More for more approach: We plan to approach the existing customer base with a ‘more for more’ approach. The premium that the consumer pays – they end up getting more than just organic fresh produce.

Fresh Produce will start with educating their customer with an inevitable question –

Why Choose us?

A transparent food system should be the emphasis for a new product positioning of Fresh Growers products. Consumers are often unaware where their food is coming from, as most land up packed at their doorstep or they end up in the shelves of the super – market in a ready to use manner. Seeing the transparency of Fresh Growers will leverage the product position in terms of building the much-needed trust factor with the brand name. Fresh Growers will propose a unique method of ‘producer – oriented – food – system’.

How it will work?

The app or website of Fresh Grower will reflect the flexibility and trust factor that we want to associate with Fresh Grower products. The outlook for website / App will reflect two themes of Fresh Growers: Trust & Flexibility

Strategy

1. Cart renamed as: Get your Fresh Grow Box
2. Two modes of delivery promised to customer: Home Delivery / Spot Delivery
3. Product Mix in offer: Broad headers - (Fruits / Vegetables) Taking into consideration the fact the Farm Growers wish to maintain a delivery time of less than 6 hours they need to go for products that needs the least of processing. Hence, they cannot market staple products (like rice / pulses / which has to go through more complicated processing cycle to reach customers as a finished good).

        Organic Fruits & Vegetables - Three sizes (Small, Medium, Large) (This categorization will help Fresh Growers to fine tune the price slabs in offer). 

The mix in the boxes would be fine-tuned with an analysis of MIS information collected from ‘in cart items’, ’checked out items’ and ‘wish listed’ items in the website / app.

1. Category 1: Go Organic Fresh Fruits & Vegetables – This will have a ready combo offer for fruits and vegetables that is ‘on demand’. 
2. Category 2: Go Organic Fresh Fruits – This box would attract the customers who would like to have wholesome fruit replenishments.
3. Category 3: Go Organic Eat Fresh – This box will have a combination of vegetables and fruits which has minimum requirement of cooking and is appealing to the consumers who are pro-organic.
4. Category 4: Go Organic Seasonal / Festive Mix – This will be certified fruits collected from local farmers or seasonal fruits. This will also have festive offers as per the regional festival requirements for fruits and vegetables. The combination for this box will change and adjusted as per the survey or data analysis results for the buying behaviour of customers. It will make the customer feel like they are having a role to play in supporting the community of hard-working farmers, and at the same time they will be able to get the regional and festive fruits which are in demand during festivals for pooja offerings, traditional festival dishes etc. It will make the customer feel that Fresh Growers are always having an option for what they are looking for.
5. The differentiation factor: (while shopping) – The customer will be given a highly interactive shopping experience through the app and website. On the upside this will in turn help in data collection and analysis of MIS for internal purpose. As for example : 

• Option to add or remove produce
• Option to create a wish list
• Option to create a “never preferred” list

1. Customer flexibility to choose:

• Box type
• Box Size
• Frequency of delivery

 These headers will help in collecting the much-needed information for planning of packaging, sorting, QC, and final delivery schedule.

Product Positioning summary

1. Transparent Food System – Consumers would be offered a ‘virtual tour’ option of the Organic Farms in question. This would be a ‘soft inventory system’ which gives the consumer a feeling of going through virtual tour of the farm through an interactive website while handpicking the produce to be saved in the Fresh Grow Box. They will have access to ‘Harvest with us’ a virtual stock inventory in which they get to pick the product mix that they would need.
2. Get the Farms Organic Certified - We will differentiate ourselves in the market with investing in the Organic certification issued by Agricultural and Processed Food Products Export Development Authority (APEDA).
3. Organising Special Events –From time-to-time organising Farm Tours / Farm Festivals / Special Events – for awareness campaigns phase wise.

Phase 1: Farm festivals organised once a year

Phase 2: Annual Festive season events for ‘awareness campaign’

Proposed market Segment (targeted)

Families in the neighbourhood:  These customers would be majorly acquired through

• door to door pamphlet distribution
• social marketing facebook / twitter / Instagram
• product launch event at malls (with sample boxes)
• farm tour invitations (for health conscious)

Restaurants supporting sustainable Organic food : This market segment should be targeted with a unique ‘value addition’ proposal that Fresh Growers brings on the table. The organic food and Farm to Table concept will help the restaurant to attract the ‘health conscious’ customer base who are willing to pay the extra price for the fresh produce.

Event managers for caterings / Office lunches:  This market can be tapped with approaching the big corporate offices and convincing their supplier to use fresh produce for the office meal. This will tap into a new market segment with a regular order base and quickly helping us to scale up the customer base with regular orders in place at regular intervals.

Proposed marketing strategy for Subscription system

A new subscription system will be introduced which will work on ‘more for more’ strategy.

A) Customers would be given price advantage for

• Scheduling pre-planned delivery
• Bulk purchase of items

B) Point - based membership

Regular customer or returning customers who preschedule their orders would be given loyalty points which will help them to climb a pre-defined membership status – Silver / Gold / Platinum.

Each of the membership status would have their predefined benefits in terms of food coupons, invitation for farm tours etc. This would work in favour of Customer Loyalty for Fresh Growers. The consumers would become our individual brand ambassador and will spread the message quickly to other potential customers.

C) Reward Points:

Create a reference or in other words creating new customers in neighbourhood.

Proposed Scheme for Suppliers

An incentive scheme would be declared for farmers (our suppliers)

Certified Farmers: The farmers who would get their farm certified for organic produce from APEDA will be able to avail the special discounted selling price from Fresh Produce. This will encourage more and more farmers to agree for organic farming practices and hence would help in maintaining company vision statement.

Organic toolkit: Farmers would be given support for getting the needed certification and training for organic produce provided they are open for the rotational on-demand based farming produce. Those who agree for rotational on-demand farming would be provided with an approval-based budget scheme (depending on the demand – supply).

Production Target: Production targets defined based on historical data analysis from orders at hand. Incentive schemes would be defined every quarter based on the predicted demand and supply.

Proposed Advertisement / Promotion strategy – This would be rolled out in phases.

Phase 1: First year of Launching to 3 new cities

• Immediate launch of “awareness campaign’ – “we are coming to your town” - through social marketing platform like ‘You Tube’ / Facebook / Instagram – every week new video scheduled to be launched for first three months. Success story of Pune should be used to build the initial point of interest of new customers.

•  Door to door campaign to be started in new cities with paper pamphlet resonating the new product positioning defined above.

• New app to be launched with special pamphlet designed to inform our existing customer base at Pune that we have added new feature and benefits.

• Annual farming event to be planned in Pune in first year and event to be used for campaign to other new cities. Pune has the advantage of having the customer and infrastructure in place.

Phase 2: Second year of Launching to 3 new cities

• Radio promotions to be planned with the expected customer base to have grown for mass broadcasting and branding
• Approach schools or colleges for second phase of customer expansion – bottom to top approach. The biggest ambassador for ‘organic food produce’ can be school going kids – who can in turn force the families to re-examine their buying choices.
• Be associated with an NGO who are in favour of going for pro - Organic and wholesome fresh produce. This will help in building the brand image of Fresh Grower.

Proposed Expansion to 3 cities: The proposed expansion to cities after the customer base Pune would be based on the market survey. However, after the internal survey of the major metro cities it was found that Delhi, Ahmedabad and Bangalore may be the suited cities to replicate and expand the customer base. In these metro cities the population seem to be purchasing more and more organic items and Fresh Growers need to capture this market trend in these cities. The pamphlets and social marketing will definitely give a glimpse for what  Fresh Growers is proposing in these targeted cities for expansion in coming time.

Expected improvement in Delivery time: There will be also an expected improvement in delivery time - with all the schemes for suppliers in place, they will be trained for efficient produce with organic methods. Also, with the proposed upgradation of IOT and tracking the package with the help of MIS data - Fresh Growers would be able to bring down the delivery time with their target of somewhere in between 3 hours to 6 hours.

Conclusion

In conclusion we can state that Fresh Growers needs to implement the proposed marketing strategy in a staggered manner and in phases. Many of the proposals need immediate attention while some can be delayed initially. Phase 1: (First Year Q1, Q2) Immediate revamp of the simple subscription-based system to the upgraded app-based subscription system (with proposed features – interactive buying experience) will help Fresh Growers to position their product as a company one could trust to supplying Fresh Organic produce. Furthermore, the IT changes proposed would help Fresh growers to be seen as a more professional brand. MIS data collection would also start which would help Fresh Growers to fine tune the product mix, SC, QC, IOT, launch the reward points, and get new customer references. The social platform upgrade to YouTube, Twitter, Facebook and website needs immediate attention so that the expansion to new cities can be planned in Phase 3 (taken into consideration the time needed for building the supplier base and infrastructures in new cities.) Phase 2: (First Year Q3 and Q4) Farm certification and training of suppliers for organic practices would take some time and investment and can be planned after two quarters when the results of the new App based subscription is already in place. Within this time frame the IOT upgrade and delivery tracking can be implemented as well. In this phase the supplier base and infrastructure in new cities will be in place and hence the advertisement campaign and farm tours should be introduced to customers. Phase 3: (Second year): By now most of the proposed changes and the results would be in place. So, more focus should be there in advertisement campaigns and mass broadcasting. There should be continuous improvement in the infrastructure of the company, product mix, and campaigns based on data analysis of historical data collected during the Phase 1 and Phase 2 of new marketing strategy implementation during First Year.

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