Filipinos are now health-conscious according to the 2015 Pulse Asia Survey. Based on the survey, the most urgent concern of Filipinos is staying healthy. Food choice is among the major factors of staying healthy. You are what you eat, right?
Veggies Squash Enterprises (VSE) introduces a new food product that health-conscious Filipinos would surely love to eat. It’s a tasty and nutritious dish – the Stuffed Squash Tuna. It’s a vegetable dish made up mainly of squash and tuna. It tastes like meat and gives powerful nutrients such as Vitamin A, Vitamin C and omega-3 fatty acids. It’s good for the eyes and heart. It also boosts the body’s immune system.
Stuffed Squash Tuna is new in the market. Most restaurants and canteens in Oroquieta City don’t have this type of dish. Though it’s simple to make this product, the secret of making it tasty is the proper mixture of ingredients. Like for example, Jollibee’s fried chicken. Many people know how to make a fried chicken but nobody knows the real and proper mixture of ingredients. That’s why Jollibee’s fried chicken is popular and most people love it. With the proper mixture of ingredients, the Stuffed Squash Tuna will surely attract many customers.
Because Stuffed Squash Tuna is new in the market, VSE utilizes penetration pricing strategy. The product is priced at a lower price at 10 pesos. Customers are enticed to buy an affordable yet nutritious dish compared to other dishes displayed in restaurants and canteens in Oroquieta.
The product is distributed thru retail (homebased) and through Value-Added Resellers (VARs). Customers can contact the VSE for orders. VSE also supplies the product to the VARs or the selected restaurants and canteens in Oroquieta.
VSE promotes the product through posting tarpaulins to key areas and making advertisements in social media like Facebook, Twitter and Youtube.
II. INTRODUCTION
The business owner, Rose dela Cruz, had the experience to eat in most of the popular restaurants and canteens in Oroquieta City. Rose dela Cruz loves vegetables. Everytime she ate in those restaurants/canteens, she noticed that only 1 or 2 types of vegetable dishes are being displayed.
Most dishes displayed are made of pork, beef and chicken. She played with her own mind, “What if I’m a Sabadista (SDA)? What if I’m a Muslim? What if I’m suffering from High Blood pressure? I don’t want to eat those meat dishes.”
It was at that time when she thought of different type of dish, a special dish that is made up mainly of vegetables. She thought of squash. Squash is highly nutritious. It happened when she ate a tuna flakes as her dish. She thought, what if I’m gonna mix the squash and tuna. It could be a potential food product. And then, Stuffed Squash Tuna was born.
III. BUSINESS DESCRIPTION
The name of our business is “Veggies Squash Enterprises” or VSE. It’s registered as Sole Proprietorship in Oroquieta City in October 1, 2016. It’s the only legal business entity in Oroquieta City which produces and sells Stuffed Squash Tuna.
It will open for business in October 10, 2016. Our starting capital is 50,000 pesos. Target market are the people living in Oroquieta City which has a total population of 70,757 as of 2015 according to the Philippine Statistics Authority (PSA).
The business implements first-to-market strategy. Since Oroquieta doesn’t have a business that sells Stuffed Squash Tuna, VSE will be the first one to produce and market the said product in Oroquieta.
The business offers made-to-order. Those who will be celebrating special events (anniversaries, birthdays, weddings, seminars, etc.) are potential customers. They can contact us for orders.
The business will also supply Stuffed Squash Tuna to selected restaurants and office/school canteens in Oroquieta City. Some of our prospective restaurants are Ogis, Kamayan, Polas, AJ Food Creations, and some small restaurants in the Public Market Building C. Some of the selected canteens to be supplied are Misamis University canteen, MONHS canteen and OCCES canteen. Payment will be through consignment basis. Consignee pays only what had been sold and Stuffed Squash Tuna left-overs will be returned.
Vision
To produce nutritious food alternatives to health-conscious Pinoys.
Mission
To provide customers with highly nutritious, delicious and affordable foods made up mainly of squash and vegetables. We aim to create an alternative dish other than meat.
Objectives
- Create and develop recipes that are made up mainly of squash and vegetables.
- Improve those recipes through using a variety of ingredients and implementing food tests.
- Outsource cheaper raw materials
- Explore business opportunities thru internet research, business meetings with known restaurant owners and meetings or seminars initiated by the government business sectors.
IV. PRODUCT DESCRIPTION
Stuffed Squash Tuna is a nutritious and tasty dish made up mainly of fried squash that is stuffed with tuna. The squash is boiled and mashed. It’s mixed with tuna for a tastier and meat-like experience.
The squash is a great source of Vitamin A and C. It’s good for the eyes and it boosts body’s immune system. While tuna fish is good for the heart since it contains lots of omega-3 fatty acids and proteins. So for health-conscious eaters or for those who are suffering from high blood pressure and cardiovascular diseases, they can choose stuffed squash tuna as their best alternative dish.
Pictures of Squash Tuna
V. BUSINESS CHALLENGE
Cooking this dish is simple. Below are the steps on how to prepare and cook the Stuffed Squash Tuna:
Step 1
Prepare the ingredients:
- 1kg. squash
- 1 (155g) small can spicy tuna flakes (Century Tuna brand preferred)
- 1 (155g) small can non-spicy tuna flakes
- ¼ kg. flour
- 2 eggs
- 375mL cooking oil
- 1 teaspoon salt
- Water
Step 2
Peel off the squash and cut into cubes.
Step 3
Boil them for 3 minutes or until tender. Then, mash them.
Step 4
Mix the tuna with the mashed squash and sprinkle the salt. Mix them well. And set this aside while preparing the breading.
Step 5
Prepare the breading. Put the flour in the tray, the breadcrumbs in another tray and the beaten eggs in the bowl. The eggs must be stirred well.
Step 6
Get a fistful of the squash mixture and form into little logs.
Step 7
Roll the squash mixture in the flour, dip into the beaten eggs, then coat with breadcrumbs.
Step 8
Deep fry until golden brown (about 1 minute).
Based on the quantity of ingredients above, 50 pieces of Stuffed Squash Tuna can be produced.
VI. MARKET REVIEW
Food service industry in Oroquieta is booming. This is evident through the rapid establishment of fastfood restaurants and mini-restaurants in the city. Popular fastfood restaurants in the city include Jollibee, Ati-atihan, Paylings, Biaños Pizza, Kamayan, Titoy’s Grill, Ogis restaurant, DDC Noodle house, Botoy’s restaurant. Recently, two popular fastfood restaurants, Mang Inasal and another Jollibee branch are under development. They will open for business this year.
With the entry of Stuffed Squash Tuna, food eaters can now have the option to choose a highly nutritious dish made of squash and tuna fish. This type of dish is most appealing to Muslims and Seventh-Day Adventist (SDA) members as they are prohibited to eat pork. Stuffed Squash Tuna tastes like pork for its meaty texture. It’s the meat replacement for vegetarians and pescetarians.
The slogan of the business is “Healthy food. Healthy life”. This statement is short, simple and very easy to understand. It gives impression to readers that to have a healthy life, one should eat healthy food. Part of the healthy life is to eat those foods that belong at the bottom of the food pyramid which is the vegetable group.
VII. MARKETING OBJECTIVES AND MARKETING STRATEGIES
Stuffed Squash Tuna is a new product to be introduced in Oroquieta City. Most popular restaurants including small restaurants don’t have this product being sold.
Product
a.) Brand name
The product is branded as Stuffed Squash Tuna. This brand wants to give the impression to the customers that what they heard or read is what they eat. The food is actually made up mainly of squash and tuna. These are what they eat. No meat. Some pictures of the product can be seen in Appendix A (page 13).
b.) Brand mark/logo
Below is the brand image of the product:
This image symbolizes love of vegetables. The plant represents vegetable. Color green leaves represents life and growth. Heart-shape soil represents the love which is the foundation of love of vegetables. Different colors of the stripes symbolizes the differences or culture of vegetable lovers.
Price
Because the business is just starting and is new to the market, it aims to implement a penetration pricing strategy. It introduces a cheaper price, a price 50% lower than other types of dishes displayed in the restaurants. Those other types of dishes are priced at 20 to 40 pesos each serve/piece. So, VSE wants to attract and penetrate the market through a lower priced product. The price can be increased if the customer base increases.
a.) Production Cost and Total Units Produced
Before determining the retail price, the cost of production is first computed. In one production given the following quantity of raw materials in the table below, the total cost reaches 150 pesos. And the total number of Stuffed Squash Tuna produced is 50 pieces.
Table 1.0: Production Cost
| Quantity | Raw Materials | Cost |
| 1kg | Squash | 40 |
| 1 (155g) | Century Tuna (spicy flakes) | 28 |
| 1 (155g) | Century Tuna (non-spicy flakes) | 28 |
| ¼kg | Flour | 8 |
| 2pcs | Eggs | 12 |
| 375mL | cooking oil | 14 |
| 1teaspoon | salt | 1 |
| 1pc | Styrofoam | 19 |
| TOTAL | Php 150.00 |
b.) Initial price
Since the total production cost amounts to 150 pesos and total Stuffed Squash Tuna produced is 50 pieces, the initial price of each Stuffed Squash Tuna is 3 pesos. Computation is shown below:
150 pesos (total production cost) ÷ 50 total products produced = 3 pesos (initial price)
c.) Markup
The business intends to set the markup at 200%. Since the initial price of each product is 3 pesos, the price after mark-up is 12 pesos. How does it come up with 12 pesos? Computation is shown below:
[3 pesos (initial price) x 200%] + 3 pesos (initial price) = 9 pesos (price after mark-up)
d.) Selling Price and Profit
9 pesos is an odd number (bungkig). It’s unusual to price a dish with this amount. So, the business round it off and set it to 10 pesos as the selling price. A profit of 7 pesos is achieved in every product sold. Simple computation is shown below:
10 pesos selling price – 3 pesos initial price = 7 pesos profit
Remember that the prices of other types of dishes sold in most restaurants in Oroquieta City range from 20 to 40 pesos. With the entry of Stuffed Squash Tuna priced at 10 pesos each, customers are attracted to buy and taste the highly nutritious dish.
Place (Distribution)
The business utilizes two distribution channels: thru retail and value-added resellers (VARs).
Retail is made when the customer (end-user) contacts VSE and orders the product. A minimum of 100 pieces (quantity of order) is required. VSE doesn’t accept orders below 100 pieces. Contacting VSE is done through text or call. The customers are required to go to VSE’s business location to get or receive the product.
Likewise, Value-Added Resellers (VARs) are another channels to be utilized in marketing the product. VARs consist of some popular restaurants and canteens in Oroquieta City. VSE will supply the product to these VARs. VSE and VARs makes an agreement to sell the product at a price of 15 pesos which is higher than the original selling price (10 pesos). The 5-peso difference of these prices is the profit entitled to the VARs. Payments are collected on weekly basis (every Friday).
Promotion
VSE promotes the product through different mediums:
- Tarpaulins – posting tarpaulins in areas with heavy foot and vehicular traffic
- Social media marketing (Facebook, Twitter, Youtube) – creating a Facebook business and group page is free. Making videos that shows how tasty and nutritious Stuffed Squash Tuna can attract customers. These videos can be posted to those platforms (in Facebook, Twitter and Youtube). This is a highly potential marketing strategy considering most youth today are Facebook users.