{"id":2390,"date":"2019-05-12T12:33:56","date_gmt":"2019-05-12T16:33:56","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/blogs.bard.edu\/mba\/?p=2390"},"modified":"2019-05-14T19:19:34","modified_gmt":"2019-05-14T23:19:34","slug":"effective-branding-strategies-to-increase-demand-for-upcycled-food-products","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/blogs.bard.edu\/mba\/2019\/05\/12\/effective-branding-strategies-to-increase-demand-for-upcycled-food-products\/","title":{"rendered":"Effective Branding Strategies to Increase Demand for Upcycled Food Products"},"content":{"rendered":"

The amount of food that is wasted and discarded in the United States each year amounts to roughly a quarter of all food produced. Two-thirds of that amount comes from the household sector, alone, <\/span>more than what households discard in plastic, paper, and glass<\/span><\/a>. The remainder of that wastage occurs in transport, at grocery stores and restaurants. <\/span><\/p>\n

A staggering <\/span>10% of the food served in restaurants ends up in landfills<\/span><\/a>, the equivalent of a half pound of food wasted for each meal. The associated annual energy expended in agriculture and transportation to generate the food waste amounts to the the equivalent of the energy expended by 37 million passenger vehicles. The consequences of this misaligned consumer behavior translates into billions of gallons of water and other resources wasted. <\/span><\/p>\n

There are also distributional issues involved in the food waste discussion. Most of the current food waste in developed countries <\/span>occurs at home after the supermarket<\/span><\/a> due to the purchases made by the middle and upper end of the income distribution spectrum. With the appropriate logistics solutions, <\/span>25 million Americans<\/span><\/a> could be fed if just 15 percent of the current food waste was diverted from the landfill. <\/span><\/p>\n

These gross inefficiencies in our food system and the misaligned consumer behavior motivated me to create a consumer good, North Star Snacks, whose main ingredients were coffee grounds, spent grain (which can comprise up to <\/span>85% of the total byproducts of the beer brewing process<\/span><\/a>), and overly ripe vegetables from local supermarkets during the first five months of my capstone project. Cultivating the product\u2019s supply chains and perfecting the granola bites\u2019 flavors, working with packaging developers, breweries, coffee shops, and other suppliers, were instrumental in allowing me to understand effective branding strategies to showcase the benefits of a product with ingredients that were unusual to the average consumer. <\/span><\/p>\n

I received positive feedback about my product\u2019s flavor even compared to established competitors. But would prospective consumers be open to purchasing my granola bites when they noticed that they were made primarily from food waste? Would consumers view products made from food waste as viable alternatives for snacking? Is it possible to make a product from waste that is appetizing and appealing to consumers? How does a brand elicit optimism and excitement around a food made from weird ingredients? <\/span><\/p>\n