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:
