Friday, July 29th, 2011
I thought I came up with a relatively well thought out process on how to choose the perfect container, however when I called to order today, they told me that they are out of my bowl for another two weeks! Lesson learned! Order your shit early! Supplier Dude said they usually have that item in stock but some customer cleaned out their warehouse with one order and that he couldn't guarantee that he'll have my bowls in by the day that I need them.
Whaaa whaa whaa. Ok I'm over my hissy fit. The option that I'm left with is to buy from a retailer who sells Supplier Dude's products for a higher price or to choose another option. I think I will choose one of the other options. I initially wanted the black bowl because hiyashi chuka (cold ramen noodles) don't look as authentic in a rectangular container and black looks sleeker and nicer, especially since I'm using soy sauce in the dressing. Sign...but since this is no longer an option, I am going to go with "Dahn tarah daaaah," the rectangular black container!
We'll see how these containers go over with the customers. The Nihonjins will definitely raise an eyebrow at the rectangular containers but there's no looking back now.
Thursday, July 28th, 2011
Today I received tons of container samples from a container supplier. He was even nice enough to deliver them to me in person. Supplier Dude said it was a first time customer service thing. Thank you Supplier Dude! I'm glad I didn't have to drive over a bridge to pick them up. Now, how do you go about choosing a container for your food? There's the all important price of course but there's so much more than that. You want the container to showcase the food in the best possible way. It should fit so that there isn't too much space left over that it looks like you're skimping. You also don't want to pack it in so tight that you can't mix the ingredients because hiyashi chuka (cold ramen noodle salad) is a mixing type of dish. Decision, decisions. Ohhh and don't get me started on all of the rules that San Francisco has on the type of plastic that you can use. Who doesn't accept #1? I think it's all just a ploy to get the good plastic so that they can sell it and make money off of it.
Let me refocus on the task at hand, which is choosing the right container. The most logical first step would be to cook a single serving of the hiyashi chuka and arrange it into the containers and see how it looks. Unfortunately, this would require going to the Japanese grocery store but that would require bridge crossing or lots of driving and their just ain't time for that. Also, I did this test previously with a sample that I got from another supplier. I promised Supplier Dude that I would contact him tomorrow with my order. Therefore, this will have to be a quick albeit a well thought out decision.
Mi's Method for Choosing a Container for a Food Fair
- Price (sort by the cheapest containers)
- Choose appropriate size among cheapest containers
- Make sure that they are in compliance with your city's regulations. This is important for food fairs. (You should ask the supplier this before you order samples)
- You may want to make sure that if you prepackage the food that all the containers will fit into cold/hot boxes for delivery. (This could be time consuming because you'll have to measure volume.)
- Looks. I mulled over white vs. black and I decided on black because the sauce is going to have a lot of soy sauce and soy sauce against white isn't going to look so nice. I also think black is appropriate for bento and I've never seen hiyashi chuka served in a white container. As far as the material goes, people should be ok with it as long as it's not styrofoam. (Bay Area peeps hate Styrofoam so this may just be a geographic thing.)
- If you have the time, I would also do a test sample of the food and put it in to see what it looks like. I did this with a similar bowl from another supplier so I already had a good idea but if it's your first time, you might want to do this step.
Containers Galore
"Look at this stuff, isn't it neat? Wouldn't you say my collection's complete? Wouldn't you say I'm the girl, the girl who has everything!"
What can I say, it just popped into my head.
Mi-
Monday, July 25th, 2011
It's been 5 months since I last posted about Bimi Bento, our budding little business. I had grand plans of getting the bento business underway and somehow we took a detour. The incubator kitchen program we applied to back in January turned us down because they thought we could do it on our own. They thought we had the skills and the resources, except after that slap in the face, we lost motivation. Motivation, it seems, was the key ingredient to get the engine started.
Recently, we've managed to build up just enough motivation to apply to a food fair. The food fair is coming up in three weeks so we did a little test recipe this past weekend. We're serving up hiyashi chuka (cold ramen noodle salad). Hiyashi chuka isn't exactly bento food, but due to strict health department rules and regulations, coupled with the fact that we don't want to deal with propane (blowing things up would be bad), we decided that cold food was the way to go. Bi invited her co-workers and friends over for a barbecue, enticing them with lots of grilled meat. They were served barbecue with a side of various types of hiyashi chuka so that we could solicit feedback. Most people couldn't really tell the difference between the types of noodles we used but they all gave us positive feedback.
The next day, I decided to test the noodles again, given the feedback that we received the previous day. It seems that the chu-futo-chijiremen (yea what a name huh?) is the most authentic noodle for hiyashi chuka. Slight alterations were made to the sauce and now we're ready to place an order on the noodles.
Hurray! Now it's back to businessy stuff. Gotta rent a tent and create banners and all the rest of it.
Hiyashi Chuka Test 1 Complete:
Hiyashi Chuka Test 2 Complete:
Wednesday, February 2nd, 2011
After our first focus group event, we analyzed the surveys and came up with a list of changes that needed to be made. We wanted to improve on our summer time bento before the summer was up so we quickly scheduled another focus group.
Bibi does iaido and practices with her group on the weekends. We needed more male feedback since our first group was predominately women so we set up our second focus group event with Bibi's iaido group.
The guys were very excited about trying our bento. They weren't as picky about whether or not they got a Japanese bento or a Western bento although maybe that's a guy thing? After all free food is free food. The guys devoured the bento quickly (one guy said it was a good snack) so we realized that the size issue had to be addressed. We learned this from the first event but we still haven't found a good supplier that sells biodegradable containers that have a clear lid on top so we decided to use the leftover containers for this event.
Takeaways from Focus Group 2:
- Larger bento!
- More data on price points, drinks, location, etc.
- More meat to veg ratio (this could have just been a bento size issue or people who don't fall in our target market.)
- Feed back on the taste/flavor etc. of the items.
We got enough feedback from both events that we didn't think the summer bento needed another focus group. We were satisfied from the results of these events that we felt we had enough information to come up with a business plan.
Authentic Japanese Bento: Chicken teriyaki over white rice, Earl Grey cookie with lemon creme, Mini tomato salad, Green beans with goma miso sauce, Japanese-style potato salad, Mini tofu burger, Soy sauce egg and Carrot garnishes.
Western Bento: Genmai (brown rice) and white rice blend, Curry chicken salad, Mini tomato salad, Green beans with goma miso sauce, Earl Grey cookie with lemon creme, Japanese-style potato salad, Mini tofu burger, Soy sauce egg and Carrot garnishes.
Vegetarian Bento: White rice, Mini tofu burgers, Earl Grey cookie with lemon creme, Mini tomato salad, Green beans with goma miso sauce, Japanese-style potato salad, Soy sauce egg and Carrot garnishes.
Focus group at Bib's Iaido practice.
Friday, January 28th, 2011
One of the first steps we thought we would take was to do a little market research of our own and hold a few focus groups. We knew that we could cook but we wanted to find out what our potential customers wanted. We decided to offer five types of bento. We wanted two sizes (small and large) and two types of bento (authentic Japanese and fusion) and a vegetarian bento.
Bibi set up a focus group at the Asia Pacific Research Center (APARC) at Stanford. We wanted to get feedback from people familiar with Japanese food people who fit the profile of potential customers. The event was a success and we were able to get a lot of good feedback from the event.
Here are some of the takeaways:
- The large bento size is not large enough for Americans (the containers were in Japanese sizes)
- The authentic Japanese bento was a lot more popular than expected.
- The dessert is a lot more important than expected (especially among women)
- A compostable container is a must
- Price points, demand for drinks and location data was also collected.
- Brown rice would be a nice option.
Authentic Japanese Bento:
- Chicken teriyaki over white rice
- Calpis kanten with nectarine (dessert)
- Mini tomato salad
- Green beans with goma miso sauce
- Japanese-style potato salad
- Mini tofu burger
- Carrot garnishes
- Tamago yaki
Western Bento:
- Roasted Chicken
- Tamago yaki
- White rice
- Calpis kanten with nectarine (dessert)
- Green beans with goma miso sauce
- Mini tomato salad
- Cheesy bread
- Japanese-style potato salad
- Carrot garnishes
With the excitement of our first focus group I completely forgot to take photos of the bento but fortunately I took photos of the test bento we did just before the event.
Authentic Japanese Bento Photo:
Western Bento Photo:
Focus Group Event at APARC:
