Master of Agribusiness / Department of Agricultural Economics / Kevin Gwinner / Under the leadership of the Van Eekeren family, Land O’ Frost has become one of
the fastest growing meat processing manufacturers in the United States. “Premium” is Land
O’ Frost’s flagship brand which makes up 57% of the company’s total sales dollars. Of the
line of Premium lunchmeats, Honey Smoked Turkey is ranked #3 in total sales dollars.
However, if you rank the product’s performance by dividing its all commodity volume
(ACV) by the number of pounds sold, it is ranked #7 out of the nine single pack flavors
offered in retail. There has been internal speculation that the Honey Smoked Turkey’s sales
performance is related to a lack of honey/sweetness flavor in the lunchmeat. As a result,
Land O’ Frost needed to determine if the current level of honey/sweetness flavor of the
Honey Smoked Turkey needs to be increased in order to stimulate higher growth in sales.
A third party consultant conducted a consumer test between Land O’ Frost’s honey
smoked turkey and their top two competitors’ honey smoked turkey. Based on the results,
the Land O’ Frost product was the least likely preferred and was rated as having the lowest
sweetness flavor profile among the three products. In an effort to develop a sweeter tasting
honey turkey, different test formulations were developed using different honeys, levels of
honey and sweeteners. The lighter the honey grade the less flavor impact was present in the
turkey. As a result, a test formula containing twice the amount of light amber honey and the
maximum amount of sugar was developed to be sweeter and to offer better marketing
claims to potentially attract more customers.
Due to product process differences between the Land O’ Frost’s honey smoked
turkey and its competitor’s, the decision was made to conduct another consumer test
between the current control and the newly formulated test product. The data determined
that there was not a significant difference between the two products tested. A triangle test
was conducted via a third party and it also confirmed the same conclusion. With the test
formula having a slightly higher cost per pound than the current control formula, it was
decided internally that the test formula could replace the current formula if the test formula
price per pound can be adjusted to the same cost as the control.
I would recommend that the level of sugar in the new test formula be slightly
decreased until the formula cost per pound is the same as the control. The cost of meat raw
materials used by Land O’ Frost often changes due to market price conditions. The new
formulated honey smoked turkey’s selling potential would still have a positive impact by
utilizing claims such as “double the honey” and “lower sodium” on the package. In this
case, the selling potential increase would be more heavily executed from a marketing
perspective than from flavor development.
| Identifer | oai:union.ndltd.org:KSU/oai:krex.k-state.edu:2097/15324 |
| Date | January 1900 |
| Creators | Coleman, Derrick T. |
| Publisher | Kansas State University |
| Source Sets | K-State Research Exchange |
| Language | en_US |
| Detected Language | English |
| Type | Thesis |
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