REPORT ON RESEARCH WORK ON CONSUMER BEHAVIOUR TOWARDS PREMIUM CHOCOLATES
SUBMITED BY:
MEGHA MARIAM THOMAS
10SBCM0215.
MARKETING-C
INTRODUCTION
In this research I have studied the consumer behaviour of three famous brands
of chocolates – Lindt, Ferrero Rocher and MnM’s which are consumed by
people of all ages. During this research I have interacted with people of
Alliance University. I also came to know which particular brand of chocolate is
most preferred by different people. In the report I have tried to explain the entire
research and facts product wise.
CONSUMER BEHAVIOUR
Customer behaviour study is based on consumer buying behaviour, with the customer playing the three distinct roles of
USER
PAYER
BUYER
Relationship marketing is an influential asset for customer behaviour analysis as it has a keen interest in the re-discovery of the true meaning of marketing through the re-affirmation of the importance of the customer or buyer. A greater importance is also placed on consumer retention, customer relationship management, personalisation, customisation and one-to-one marketing. Social functions can be categorized into social choice and welfare functions.
Each method for vote counting is assumed as social function but if Arrow’s possibility theorem is used for a social function, social welfare function is achieved. Some specifications of the social functions are decisiveness, neutrality, anonymity, monotonicity, unanimity, homogeneity and weak and
strong Pareto optimality. No social choice function meets these requirements in an ordinal scale simultaneously. The most important characteristic of a social function is identification of the interactive effect of alternatives and creating a logical relation with the ranks. Marketing provides services in order to satisfy customers. With that in mind, the productive system is considered from its beginning at the production level, to the end of the cycle.
CONSUMPTION OF CHOCOLATES IN INDIA
Chocolate consumption in India is extremely low. Per capita consumption is
around 160 gms in the urban areas, compared to 8-10kg in the developed
countries. In rural areas, it is even lower. Chocolates in India are consumed as
indulgence and not as a snack food. The consumption of premium chocolates is
rare and is mostly found in the premium customers due to the price. But with
globalization and increase in the disposable income people have started
indulging in it.
CHOCOLATE PRODUCTION
The cocoa-bean -- the heart of the sweetest delicacy in the world --
is bitter! This is why, up to the 18th century some native tribes ate
only the sweetish flesh of the cocoa fruit. They regarded the
precious bean as waste or used it, as was the case among the
Aztecs, as a form of currency.There are two quite different basic
classifications of cocoa, under which practically all varieties can
be categorised: Criollo and Forastero cocoas. The pure variety of the Criollo
tree is found mainly in its native Equador and Venezuela. The seeds are of finer
quality than those of the Forastero variety.
They have a particularly fine, mild aroma and are, therefore, used only in the
production of high-quality chocolate and for blending. However, Criollo cocoa
accounts for only 10% of the world crop. The remaining 90% is harvested from
trees of the Forastero family, with its many hybrids and varieties. The main
growing area is West Africa. The cocoa tree can flourish only in the hottest
regions of the world.
Immediately after harvesting, the fruit is treated to prevent it from
rotting. At fermentation sites either in the plantation or at,
collecting points, the fruit is opened.
Fermentation
The fermentation process is decisive in the production of high quality raw
cocoa. The technique varies depending on the growing region.
Drying
After fermentation, the raw cocoa still contains far too much water; in fact
about 60%. Most of this has to be removed.
What could be more natural than to spread the beans out to dry on the sun-
soaked ground or on mats? After a week or so, all but a small percentage of the
water has evaporated.
CleaningBefore the real processing begins; the raw cocoa is thoroughly cleaned by passing through sieves, and by brushing. Finally, the last vestiges of wood, jute fibres, sand and even the finest dust are extracted by powerful vacuum equipment.
Roasting
the subsequent roasting process is primarily designed to develop the aroma. The
entire roasting process, during which the air in the nearly 10 feet high furnaces
reaches a temperature of 130 °C, is carried out automatically.
Crushingandshelling
the roasted beans are now broken into medium sized pieces in the crushing
machine.
Blending
Before grinding, the crushed beans are weighed and blended according to
special recipes. The secret of every chocolate factory lies in the special mixing
ratios, which it has developed for different types of cocoa.
Grinding
the crushed cocoa beans, which are still fairly coarse are now pre-ground by
special milling equipment and then fed on to rollers where they are ground into
a fine paste. The heat generated by the resulting pressure and friction causes the
cocoa butter (approximately 50% of the bean) contained in the beans to melt,
producing a thick, liquid mixture.
This is dark brown in colour with a characteristic, strong odour. During cooling
it gradually sets: this is the cocoa paste.
At this point the production process divides into two paths, but which soon join
again. A part of the cocoa paste is taken to large presses, which extract the
cocoa butter. The other part passes through various blending and refining
processes, during which some of the cocoa butter is added to it. The two paths
have rejoined.
The cocoa butter has important functions. It not only forms part of
every recipe, but it also later gives the chocolate its fine structure,
beautiful lustre and delicate, attractive glaze.
Cocoa Powder
After the cocoa butter has left the press; cocoa cakes are left which still contain
a 10 to 20% proportion of fat depending on the intensity of compression.
These cakes are crushed again, ground to powder and finely sifted
in several stages and we obtain a dark, strongly aromatic powder,
which is excellent for the preparation of delicious drinks - cocoa.
Cocoa paste, cocoa butter, sugar and milk are the four basic ingredients for
making chocolate. By blending them in accordance with specific recipes the
three types of chocolate are obtained which form the basis of ever product
assortment, namely:
Kneading
In the case of milk chocolate for example, the cocoa paste, cocoa butter,
powdered or condensed milk, sugar and flavouring - maybe vanilla - go into the
mixer, where they are pulverized and kneaded.
Rolling
Depending on the design of the rolling mills, three or five
vertically mounted steel rollers rotate in opposite directions. Under
heavy pressure they pulverise the tiny particles of cocoa and sugar
down to a size of approx. 30 microns. (One micron is a thousandth part of a
millimetre.)
Conching
But still the chocolate paste is not smooths enough to satisfy our
palates. But within two or three days all that will have been put
right. For during this period the chocolate paste will be refined to
such an extent in the conches that it will flatter even the most discriminating
palate.
Conches (from the Spanish word "concha", meaning a shell) is the name given
to the troughs in which 100 to 1000 kilograms of chocolate paste at a time can
be heated up to 80 °C and, while being constantly stirred, is given a velvet
smoothness by the addition of certain amounts of cocoa butter. A kind of
aeration of the liquid chocolate paste then takes place in the conches: its bitter
taste gradually disappears and the flavour is fully developed. The chocolate no
longer seems sandy, but dissolves meltingly on the tongue. It has attained the
outstanding purity, which gives it its reputation.
LINDT CHOCOLATES
The origins of the company date back to 1845. David Sprüngli-Schwarz and his son, Rudolf Sprüngli-Ammann owned a small confectionery shop in the old town of Zurich, to which two years later a small factory was added to produce chocolate in solid form.
Products that Lindt is famous for are its block chocolates. Current flavours from the Excellence range include:
Mint intense: dark chocolate infused with mint Orange intense: dark chocolate infused with orange essence and almond
flakes White Coconut: white chocolate with crisp flakes of fine coconut. Almond: white chocolate with whole roasted almonds and caramelised
almond pieces Poire intense: pear flavoured chocolate with almond flakes
Cherry intense Regular dark chocolate: available in 50%, 60%, 70%, 85%, 90% or 99%
cocoa varieties Extra creamy: milk chocolate Toffee crunch: crunchy toffee bits wrapped in milk chocolate Caramel crunchy: studded with crunchy caramel Lindor: the famous balls but in cube form Pistachio: a creamy pistachio filling in milk chocolate Mandarin: a creamy mandarin filling in milk chocolate Strawberry: a creamy white chocolate strawberry filling in milk chocolate Strawberry margarita: 'capsule' form with strawberry and margurita filling Orange: a creamy orange flavoured filling in milk chocolate Cuba: 55% cocoa, single origin Cuba Madagascar: 70% cocoa, single origin Madagascar Ecuador: 75% cocoa, single origin Ecuador Vanilla: White chocolate with vanilla bean Coffee Chilli: a 70% cocoa dark chocolate with red chilli extract Raspberry Intense Dark: dark chocolate with pieces of raspberries and
almond slivers A touch of sea salt: dark chocolate seasoned with sea salt
FERRERO ROCHER
Introduced in 1982, the chocolates consist of a whole roasted hazelnut encased
in a thin wafer shell filled with hazelnut cream and covered in milk chocolate
and chopped hazelnuts and walnuts. The sweets each contain 73 calories, and
are individually packaged inside a gold-coloured wrapper. Rocher comes from
French and means "rock".
Ferrero varieties
Ferrero Rocher – a whole hazelnut, coated in milk chocolate, surrounded by 'Nutella' filling, and encased in a nut croquante.
Ferrero Rondnoir – a 'pearl' of dark chocolate, surrounded by a dark chocolate cream, encased in a croquante and encrusted with dark chocolate Sprinkles.
Ferrero Raffaello – a half almond, surrounded by meringue and milk cream, encased in coconut wafer coated with coconut flakes.
Ferrero Garden (Coconut) – a half almond, surrounded by coconut cream, encased in wafer coated with coconut flakes, and topped with white chocolate icing cap.
Ferrero Garden (Lemon) – as above, but with lemon cream centre and flavouring, and lemon icing cap.
Ferrero Garden (Forest Fruits) – as above, but with strawberry & raspberry cream centre and flavouring, and strawberry icing cap.
Ferrero Garden (Pistacchio)[3] – as above, but with pistachio cream centre and flavouring, and pistachio icing cap.
Ferrero Garden (Almond) – as above, but with almond cream centre and flavouring, and almond icing cap.
Ferrero Garden (Hazelnut) – as above, but with nutella-type centre, and a white chocolate icing cap.
Ferrero Giotto – a chocolate cream centre, within a wafer sphere coated with hazelnut pieces.
The Rocher always bears a golden coloured wrapper, the Rondnoir a dark brown wrapper, and the Garden a silver wrapper with an illustration of the flavour under the name tag—for example, a strawberry, or a coconut.
LITERATURE REVIEWThe literature review that I have done is on the article that talks about premium chocolates taking off in India.At 10 per cent of the overall Rs 2,000-crore chocolate market, the premium segment is small. Yet, it is growing at a steady 30-40 per cent per annum, according to industry estimates.Premium refers to those products whose average price is Rs 100 and above. Quite a few chocolates fall in this segment, including brands such as Lindt, Ferrero, Godiva, Mars, etc. Mostly imported and distributed in the country, some of them such as Ferrero are going a step further, by setting up local manufacturing facilities.
A 100 gm bar of Lindt, costs anywhere between Rs 195 and Rs 255. It will soon introduce smaller packs of 38 gm. This will be priced between Rs 90 and Rs 120.
Lindt is not the only one doing this. When leading chocolate maker Cadbury’s launched a rich chocolate variant of its Cadbury Dairy Milk called Silk earlier this year, it did so at Rs 99 for a 169 gm pack.
Ferrero has its gift boxes, competitively priced at Rs 290 for a pack of five to over Rs 1,000 for a large 24-piece pack. According to industry sources, price points of Ferrero could fall further after its second manufacturing facility takes off in the middle of next year.
Hence from the above we can conclude that due to the increase in the disposable income, the purchasing power of the people has increased and hence the indulgence in premium chocolates has increased.
SCOPE OF THE STUDY
The scope of my study restricts itself to the analysis of consumer behaviour
towards premium chocolates viz Lindt, Ferrero Rocher, M n M’s. There are
many other brands of chocolates available but my study is limited to three major
players of chocolates leaving behind the others. The scope of my study is also
restricts itself to ALLIANCE UNIVERSITYonly.
OBJECTIVES OF THE STUDY
This project is based on the comparative study consumer behaviour towards
premium chocolates viz Lindt, Ferrero Rocher, M n M ‘s .
Objectives of the study are:
The other objective is to know about the customer satisfaction level
associated with the product and the customer preference level.
To increase customer satisfaction and recapture the market share by
fulfilling the customer needs.
To study the factors affecting the consumption pattern.
NULL HYPOTHESIS: H0: there is no significant difference between the
ratings of the three premium chocolates.
ALTERNATIVE HYPOTHESIS: H1: There is a significant difference between
the ratings of the three premium chocolates.
A BRIEF INTRODUCTION OF ONE WAY ANOVA
Statistics, one-way analysis of variance (abbreviated one-way ANOVA) is a technique used to compare means of two or more sample.
The ANOVA tests the null hypothesis that samples in two or more groups are drawn from the same population. To do this, two estimates are made of the population variance. These estimates rely on various assumptions. The ANOVA produces an F statistic, the ratio of the variance calculated among the means to the variance within the samples. If the group means are drawn from the same population, the variance between the group means should be lower than the variance of the samples, following central limit theorem.
The results of a one-way ANOVA can be considered reliable as long as the following assumptions are met:
Response variable must be normally distributed (or approximately normally distributed).
Samples are independent. Variances of populations are equal. Responses for a given group are independent and identically
distributed normal random variables (not a simple random sample (SRS)
RESEARCH METHODOLOGY
This chapter describes the methodology of the study. This project is based on
information collected from primary sources. After the detailed study, an attempt
has been made to present analysis of consumption of premium chocolates
consumed by the people. The data had been used to cover consumer behaviour
regarding premium chocolates. In collecting requisite data and information
regarding the topic selectedI went to the residents of Alliance University and
collected the data.
Survey design:
The study is a cross sectional study because the data were collected at a single
point of time. For the purpose of present study a related sample of population
was selected on the basis of convenience.
Sample Size and Design:
A sample of 50 people was taken on the basis of convenience.
Sample area:
Alliance University
Sample units:
Students
Research Period:
Research work is only carried for a weeks.
Research Instrument:
This work is carried out through self-administered questionnaires
Data Collection:
The data, which is collected for the purpose of study, is divided into 2 bases:
Primary Source : The primary data comprises information survey of
“Comparative study of consumer behaviour towards Lindt, ferrero rocher
and M n M ‘S chocolates”. The data has been collected directly from
respondent with the help of structured questionnaires.
Secondary Source: The secondary data was collected from internet,
References from Library.
RESULT
Descriptives
ratings
N MeanStd. Deviation
Std. Error
95% Confidence Interval for Mean
Minimum
Maximum
Lower Bound
Upper Bound
1.00 50 2.6400 1.19112 .16845 2.3015 2.9785 1.00 5.002.00 50 3.6600 1.20560 .17050 3.3174 4.0026 2.00 5.003.00 50 3.3000 1.09265 .15452 2.9895 3.6105 1.00 5.00Total
150 3.2000 1.23158 .10056 3.0013 3.3987 1.00 5.00
ANOVA
ratings Sum of Squares df
Mean Square F Sig.
Between Groups
26.760 2 13.380 9.872 .000
Within Groups
199.240
147 1.355
Total 226.000
149
ANALYSIS OF THE RESULT
The significance value as seen from the analysis is less than 0.005 and hence we reject the null hypothesis. According to the null hypothesis which states that there is no significant difference between the ratings of the three premium chocolates. But from the above analysis using SPSS we reject the null hypothesis. There is a difference in the ratings of the chocolates.
As we can see from the above ratings the highest rating for the chocolate is 5 and the minimum is 1 which shows that different people have different preferences.
The mean ratings of LINDT, FERRERO and M n M ‘s are 2.6, 3.6 and 3.3.
The reasons for the differences would be
Difference in the taste Availability of the chocolate. In alliance its ferrero that is available in the departmental store and that is
the reason it has the highest ratings.
REASONS FOR NOT SWITCHING OVER TO OTHER BRANDS
All the consumers why they continue to buy the old brand gave various
important reasons. The most important reasons given by the consumers were:
Taste/Flavour
Brand
Image
Quality
Packaging
CONCLUSION
From the above study I am concluding that be it premium or any kind of chocolate, the love for chocolates remains the same irrespective of the age group. When a particular brand of chocolate is available people cannot resist them.
Lindt being priced high has good packaging and has an awesome taste.
Ferrero has amazing packaging and is priced high too.
M n MS is more famous among the kids as due to its shape. In alliance ferrero has the highest rating as its available in the departmental store.
LIMITATIONS OF THE STUDY
In attempt to make this project authentic and reliable, every possible aspect of
the topic was kept in mind. The main limitations are as follows:
Due to limitation of time only few people were selected for the study. So
the sample of consumers was not enough to generalize the findings of the
study.
The main source of data for the study was primary data with the help of
self-administered questionnaires. Hence, the chances of unbiased
information are less.
ANNEXURES
The question that was asked to the respondents
On a scale of 5 where 5 being the best and 1 being bad how would you rate the following premium chocolates?
LINDT
FERRERO ROCHER
MnM’S
REFERENCES
http://www.google.com
http://www.chocolatereview.co.uk
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/preference
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/File:Ferrero-Rocher.jpg
http://www.business-standard.com/india/news/premium-chocolates-take-off-in-
india/406293/
http://www.articlesbase.com/advertising-articles/top-10-brands-of-chocolate-in-the-
world-2016378.html