Today almost every home you will find a packet of cereal in the kitchen or even in the bedroom. Our young generation from lower grades primary students to the college students have been brought up believing there is no breakfast without cereals. Even the fresh college leavers will still have a soft spot for cereals. Many companies have come up with cereals which they claim have high fiber content, flavored, low sugar, high sugar, or even fortified with variety of vitamins and other essential health benefits components. However, all the cereals available in the market have to be mixed with either milk, water, yogurt, fruit juice or anything so that they can be soft though crunchy. There are cereals in the market that are consumable dry; unfortunately, they have not been able to penetrate the market since many people prefer their cereals mixed with something delicious and a bit soft, smooth and easy to digest.
Therefore, I am proposing for the ‘ON THE GO CEREAL’ which is already mixed with milk, water, yogurt or fruit juice. There need to buy cereal and milk is eliminated. A person can just walk into a supermarket or a near shop and buy cereal which is ready to be consumed. This will save people a lot of time since they don’t have to find something to mix with the cereal or to wash utensils. It can be eaten anywhere in the car, parks or even in the office.
Many parents are unhappy lot since they claim their young children misuse milk and make the kitchen dirty by spilling milk everywhere. The economy at the moment is not doing well, the price of milk has escalated and the value of money has drastically reduced due to ever rising inflation. Therefore, the idea of wastage of milk every single morning does not sit well with many parents. This new cereal will be a relief to many parents who are always away from home and their precious children.
The target market population is the young individuals who have no refrigerators in urban centers but can easily find their way to the supermarkets and leading shops/stores near them. This will be ideal for them since they do not have to worry about the expiry date of the milk. They can just buy the quantity they want and eat right away. The product also targets mothers who always away from home to monitor their children on how they milk, water, yogurt or fruit juice on their cereals.
For the first 1 year, the product will concentrate on milk mixed with cereal before introducing other variety. The product will come in many variety and forms such as more to less milk depending how the customers like their cereals mixed; less or more sugar. The manufacturer will make sure the cereal vitamins fortified and fibered thus the quality of cereal is uncompromised. The packaging is in a variety of containers of 250 grams to 1kg and sachets of 100 grams; hence customers of all classes, poor or rich, can afford the quantity they want and allowed by their financial health.
There is a ready market that is ready to consume the product to save time used to prepare the cereal before eating and to save on cost. There are many shops which are found in many residential areas hence the product can be easily purchased. There is 80% market penetration since the cereal market is not monopolized. The regulations which govern the cereal production are very easy to comply with and there process of getting the licenses to manufacture the product is easy, short and clear.
The raw materials for the product are much available in our country since all the raw materials are locally available. There is a ready energetic labor looking for employment and this will be a good platform for a new company to negotiate competitive salaries to the benefit of the company. The machineries which will be used for the production does not require huge capital to start. The product is promising high profits margins for the company, more employment to our youth leaving colleges and a healthy nation since the product is healthy living oriented and contains essential vitamins.
I recommend that the company do more scientific research on preservatives used to make sure the product does not expire easily and has no effect on it by the weather or storage conditions. This is a new market, scarcely exploited, and with a promise of bringing profits to the company.
Works Cited
Annacchino, Marc A. The Pursuit of New Product Development: The Business Development Process. Amsterdam: Butterworth-Heinemann, 2007. Print.
Cooley, Thomas F. Frontiers of Business Cycle Research. Princeton, N.J: Princeton University Press, 1995. Print.
Wilson, Graham. Six Sigma and the Product Development Cycle. Amsterdam: Elsevier Butterworth-Heinemann, 2005. Print.
