Background:
Thanks to Almighty Allah, who bestowed us with courage & ability to achieve this opportunity. We have collected the data from our research through survey method and questionnaires and we are in no confusion for saying that this activity has enhanced our knowledge about the research work. We hereby take this opportunity to thank all those people including our friends and colleagues who have helped us for the successful completion of this project.
The project shows the satisfaction level as well as the preferences of consumers pertaining to the trends in snacks industry and the various flavors of Lay’s, a new range of savory snacks launched by Pepsi Co. in Pakistan. Our aim is to analyze the success, marketability and future prospective of lay's in Pakistan. Now a day's snacks are part of our daily life. Snacks can be defined as a small quantity of food eaten between meals or in place of meals. It's not necessary that it only include chip, it may include cake, nimko, bakery, ready-to-eat items and other light processed foods. Snacks are mostly preferred by children and youngsters to fulfill their appetite for the time being.
Of the wide range of snacks available, potato chips constitute a sizeable segment of the Pakistani snack food industry. The potato chip market is generally an unorganized industry. Nearly all potato chip snack products are manufactured and sold locally and there are no proper standards for packaging and quality but some big companies are still investing a lot on packaging and quality.
Pepsi Foods Ltd., now known as Frito-Lay Ltd. produces Pakistan's largest snack food manufacturer’s brands including kukure, Cheetos and Lay’s. Limiting our scope to Frito-lay Ltd. we are discussing lay's only.
History:
Lay's is the brand name for a number of potato chip varieties as well as the name of the company that founded the chip brand in 1938. Lay's chips are marketed as a division of Frito-Lay, a company owned by PepsiCo Inc. since 1965. Other brands in the Frito-Lay group include Fritos, Doritos, Ruffles, Cheetos and Rold Gold pretzels.
In 1932 salesman Herman W. Lay opened a snack food operation in Nashville, Tennessee and in 1938 he purchased the Atlanta, Georgia potato chip manufacturer “Barrett Food Company," renaming it "H.W. Lay & Company." Lay criss-crossed the Southern United States selling the product from the trunk of his car. In 1942, Lay introduced the first continuous potato processor, resulting in the first large-scale production of the product. In 1944 the company shorted its name to "The Lay's Company" and became the first Snack food manufacturer to purchase television commercials with Bert Lahr as a celebrity spokesman. In 1961 the Frito Company and "The Lay's Company" merged to form the Frito-Lay company a snack food giant with combined sales over $127 million annually, the largest of any manufacture.
In June 1965, Frito-Lay merged with the Pepsi Cola Company to form PepsiCo, Inc. At the time of the merger, Frito-Lay owned only 46 manufacturing plants nationwide but today it is pioneer manufacturer of snacks in the world. A new formulation of chip was introduced in 1991 that was crisper and kept fresher longer. Shortly thereafter, the company introduced the "Wavy Lays" products to grocery shelves.
In the 2000s, kettle cooked brands appeared as did a processed version called Lay's Sax that was intended to compete with Pringles and the company began introducing a variety of additional flavor variations.
Flavors:
Lay's have many flavors all over the world but the variety of lay's is limited in Pakistan due to Halal Food to be sold in Pakistan. Flavors selling in Pakistani markets are Salted, Masala, French Cheese, Dahi Baray and Mint Chanay only.
Lays brand IN Pakistan: 1. Kurkure. 2. Lays. 3. Cheetos.
Lays Flavors in Pakistan: • Plain Salted; • French Cheese; • Tomato Tango.
Profile:
Ever since its inception in 1942, kolson is enjoying its sales all over the world as being one of the pioneer food manufacturers. In Pakistan, the whole range of Kolson products is made by using latest German, Dutch, Swiss and Italian etc. latest technology and process to back prime raw materials.
Products:
Pasta Sandwiches Biscuits Snacks Breakfast Cereals Strategies: Global economy changes with time. So every organization has to change its strategies to compete with the present time. Kolson is always prepared to accept the challenge and to move one step ahead of changes. 2-Super Crisp:
Profile: In 1982 super crisp came into being in Pakistan with the vision to cater to the culinary requirements of the taste buds of the Pakistani nation. The company offers a range of snack food items to include Potato Chips, Nimko Mix, Peanuts, corn and potato based extruded products. Nationwide availability of the products is made possible by a vast and effective distribution network. Products:
Potato Chips Mr. Crips Salty Catty Chins Nimko Mix Strategies:
Distribution strategy: Super Crisp is available from small roadside shops to all grocery and big retail stores. It has various flavors in the market which covers all type of taste and it has a strong distribution channel. Pricing Strategy: Super Crisp places its prices similar to the other competitors with different size of packing. Super Crisp is targeting all age groups with 15gm of 10 rupees and varies to 40 grams with rupees 20. Promotion Strategy: Super Crisp adopted aggressive promotional strategy when it was launched. They used television commercials as well as billboards for a long period of time. But now the promotion is limited.
Research:
We conducted a research with a questionnaire to study the trends in snacks industry as a part of food processing industry, to find out what percentage of population likes to eat snacks, to find out what percentage of population likes to eat Lay`s Chips, to find out which flavor of Lay`s is most preferred, to analyze the reason for the popularity of Lay`s as the most preferred snack, to know the satisfaction level of people who eat Lay`s, to find out how much people spend on Lay`s snacks weekly, to find out conclusions to our results.
Results of few questions are shown below: What compels consumers to consume it? What is the most important thing people look for in a snack?
Research also suggests that lays should come up with more flavors. It doesn’t come in Junk food category. It is healthy to consume. It is easily available. People would like to entertain their guests with lays. The big names attached to the lays do affect the product. This is because Pepsi has an old name in the market and people know it very well, so when they get to know that lay’s comes under the company Pepsi Co, it definitely attracts the customer. So a customer will prefer to buy such a product instead of other chips brands. People do think it has acquired a good name in the market. It is available easily at the grocery stores, departmental stores, mini marts and also at cold corners too. When people see such a product everywhere in the market, they get to know about it and obviously they buy it. Mostly the children and the teenagers are attracted towards such a product. They enjoy having such an eatable when they are feeling hungry, which is easily available and has a great taste. The basic difference between these chips and the other lies in the taste. It tastes very good as compared to the other chips and has a larger quantity with less amount of money. Lay’s has different sized packets, it has a good taste, and it is easy to eat. Also it is available in different flavors and it has a wide variety of tastes and people would get their favorite available tastes. So they would also recommend other people to buy that too because of its quality, price and taste. As lays has a different number of flavors so here comes the question whether people are satisfied with the existing number of flavors or not. It has a wide variety of flavors everywhere in the world but in Pakistan few of the flavors are available which are Salted, Bar be q, ketchup tango, Masala, French Cheese and Wavy.
Lays has also introduced two new flavors named as Dahi Baray and Mint chatni. So as there are so many flavors, people are satisfied with these numbers of flavors. Lays may come with more flavors but if even if it does not come with more flavors, its existing flavors are enough and that would not put them at loss at all. In the countries other than Pakistan, there are many flavors. In every area, people have a taste of their own and lay’s trying to come up with the tastes of the people of different regions in the world. They have developed dozens of tastes, in order to continue selling their products according to customer requirements. In the North America for example, the traditional fried varieties include Sour Cream & Onion, Barbecue, Cheddar & Sour Cream, Hidden Valley Ranch, Salt & Pepper, Flamin Hot, Dill Pickle, Limón, and a thicker "Deli style" chip. In Europe, the flavors include cheese & onion, Smokey bacon, prawn cocktail, pickled onion, beef & onion and Marmarite. The other flavors being sold in Europe are Olive and Tomato, Oregano, Sea Salt & Black Pepper.
One flavor sold in Asia is the magic masala. Other flavors sold in Asia are Classic, Sour Cream & Onion, Cheese & Onion, Mexican Bar-B-Q, and Japanese Nori Seaweed. Lays chips does not comes under the category of junk food. Most of the people think that the lays chips are not healthy to consume. They consider it as a junk food. In view of the mature people and nutritionists, it is a junk food and people should better consume some fresh fruits and vegetables instead of eating lays chips to finish their hunger cramps. Also if we ask a nutritionist about it he would definitely recommend not taking regularly it in diet. It does not give that nutrition which the fresh vegetables and fruits or the healthy items like fresh food give. Rather it makes a person bulky and fat.
Preferred size:
Total number of selling for the small size were eight which were sixteen percent of the total lays. In the similar way when medium size lays were sold we have seen that the number of selling increased to thirty four which were sixty eight percent the total. The same test was done for large sized lays and it has been observed that the selling reduced to eight. The same market response was observed as was seen for small size which covered sixteen percent.
Consumption of the Product:
Now the analysis of its consumption has been done that how it is consumed in our life. It has been observed for certain amount of time that for a very often the number of people to buy the product has been observed to be thirty five and which are seventy percent of the total consumers. The numbers of people to buy only often are nine which is eighteen percent to accumulate the total percentage to eighty eight of the buyers. The number of people who buy lays sometimes are six whose percentage is twelve percent of the total to accumulate to hundred percent. The results of the analysis show that 70% of people consume the product very often. Why lays are purchased?
In this analysis the reasons for the purchase of the lays has been recorded that whether it has been bought for advertising ,live demonstration, retail outlets or home shopping . The frequency found for advertising was 25 and made 50% of the sample people taken. The frequency found for live demonstration was 1 and made 2% of the sample people taken to make the total of 52%. The frequency found for retail outlets was 6 and made 12% of the sample people taken to make the total of 64%. The frequency found for Home shopping was 18 and made 36% of the sample people taken to make the total of 100%. The results of the analysis reveal that half of the sample from the population`s information regarding the purchase of the product is advertising. What Influences people when buying a snack?
In this analysis we have observed that what the influences on the people are when they are buying snakes. They may be the word of mouth, advertisements, Offers/discounts or Sales/ services. It has been observed in our sample of the people the frequency for buying because of the word of mouth were 7 which were 14% of the total sample people. The number of people wanted it because of advertisements were 16 who were 32% of the total. The frequency of the people influenced due to Offers/discount were 12 who were 24% of the total and influenced due to sales/services were 15 they were 30% of the sample taken. So it seems that most influencing thing is advertisements.
Threats to Validity:
• Respondents may not give us the exact information in the questionnaire due to the lack of interest.
• Due to controversial topic respondent may have provided the biased information.
Conclusion:
This is the report about Lay’s, its products and its competitors. Although Lay’s is a leading company in snacks but there is always a room for improvement. So Lays should improve its quality so that it can succeed to grasp more consumers’ attention. In this report, we intend to identify the consumer trends towards Lays and its competitor’s strategies to improve its market share. In addition Lays Company Should introduces some new flavors in Pakistan which are not currently available here but are available in other countries like in India. We hope you will find this report best for analysis of Lays performance.
