Understanding the nutritional value and the impact on the health status of an individual, which a particular product has, is vital for the well-being of the community and the successful promotion of a new brand. Therefore, companies such as the Chocolate Almond Granola Cereal will have to consider their approach toward keeping its nutritional; value and making the product attractive to the target population by sprucing the emphasis on sugar and, instead, bringing a more important issue to the attention of parents (Ichinose & Liu, 2017). By pondering the current constituent’s o the Chocolate Almond Granola Cereal as one of the most successful and easily recognizable brats, one will simultaneously introduce solutions to the current situation observed in the target company and at the same time improve the situation by revisiting the ratio of the products included in the production of the oatmeal.
Target Population
As a rule, the producers of cereals view children as their primary target audience, mostly due to the constituents of the specified type of food, as well as the traditional marketing route chosen to promote it. Since most cereals are positioned as a healthy breakfast option and include sweet coating, such as sugar glaze, cereals are typically promoted with children as the primary audience in mind. However, the cereal in question, which is a chocolate oatmeal granola, will be positioned as the food option for people of all ages.
Thus, the company will expand the range of its potential buyers and represent the product in a way that will allow making it more popular (Fayet-Moore et al., 2017). In addition, appealing to a broader number of customers will help the organization to change its image toward a more universal one, making it easier for the company to promote loyalty among its consumers. Once the company’s product is no longer viewed as children’s breakfast, adults will become much more eager to purchase it.
It should be noted that, in its current form, the product seems to be rather neutral in its brand image. The Chocolate Almond Granola Cereal does not contain any markers that allow identifying it with an age-specific population, which is both an advantage and a problem. On the one hand, the company does not have artificially imposed restrictions on the range of customers to which it can advertise the product, which is a doubtless benefit (Clifford, 2020). On the other hand, the product is currently nearly stripped of personality, which is likely to make it harder to promote it. Therefore, focusing on creating a more appealing brand image ad incorporating the message that will help target audiences to relate to the product better is advisable.
Ingredients
The inclusion of almonds into the product as one of the main ingredients along with chocolate is expected to make the granola cereal in question to stand out among other brands. From a health perspective, almonds should be seen as the most valuable component of the cereal in question along with oatmeal.
Although the nutritional value of the product is slightly diminished by the presence of sugar, almonds and oatmeal compensate for the specified concern (Dahiya, 2020). In addition, when addressing the sugar presence, one needs to emphasize that the Chocolate Almond Granola Cereal contains a very small amount of sugar in it. Specifically, 15 grams of sugar per two/’3 cup of the cereal makes it a lesser issue compared to other companies that include sugar lavishly into their products.
However, it is worth keeping in mind that the aforementioned 15 grams per 2/3 cup is the presence of sugar as one of the components of the recipe used to create the cereal. As for the other forms in which sugar is introduced into this cereal, less information is provided. For instance, given the presence of chocolate in the cereal, as well as the fact that the chocolate in question is not sugar-free, it will be legitimate to believe that the specified component increases the amount of sugar in the product (Feiring, 2019). Therefore, the nutritional value of Chocolate Almond Granola Cereal may appear to be more convoluted than the company wishes to present to its audiences.
Herein lies the primary issue with Chocolate Almond Granola Cereal. In order to target its audience properly and ensure that its health needs are met, the organization will have to be entirely transparent with its buyers. In turn, the increase in transparency will require disclosing the components of the current recipe to the general audience and being entire honest with them about the amount of sugar on the product. In turn, the latter piece of informational contain the data that will unpleasantly surprise the target audience.
Therefore, the hesitation of the company is rather understandable and easy to empathize with due to the complexity of the situation. Nonetheless, the focus on honesty and transparency will allow the company to keep its customs and even attract the attention and curiosity of new ones (Krakovsky, 2010). Thus, the firm will be able to ensure that I recent addition to the bran portfolio will eHealth-related needs of the target audience or, at the very least, will not interfere with their metabolism adversely.
Changing Ingredients
Revisiting the ingredients that the Chocolate Almond Granola Cereal contains, one should mention the increased amount of sugar as one of the foundational problems with the brand in question. Granola cereals already have a rather poor reputation due to the questionable choice of ingredients and the focus on taste rather than their nutritional value. As a result, the open statement concerning the presence of not only chocolate but also almonds, which are rather high in fats as well, is likely to cause buyers to experience health issues, primarily, weight gain, when consuming the product regularly. For this reason, reducing the amount of sugar that the cereal contains should be the first step toward updating and improving it.
The described change might seem as virtually impossible given the fact that the entire brand image of the product, starting from its literal tile, is based on the promotion of its least healthy ingredient, namely, chocolate. However, by changing the marketing approach slightly to replace the current chocolate type with a much darker one with the minimum of sugar in it, one will be able to improve the nutritional value of the product. The transition from one set of ingredients to another will be seamless once an appropriate marketing campaign with the focus on healthy nutrition is implemented.
As for the second ingredient, namely, almonds, one should mention their high nutritional value and the importance of including them into the cereal. Indeed, according to the recent research, almonds help to reduce the risk of developing cardiovascular diseases, the specified product is expected to provide additional health improvement options for its consumers (Farag et al., 2020). In addition, almonds have been proven to prevent diabetes and weight gain (Aiken, 2014). Therefore, the specified component of the cereal is not to be changed.
Frequency of Consumption
Although there is a strong marketing narrative about the importance of cereal consumption as the basis for developing healthy eating habits, one must admit the lack of substance behind these claims in regard to most cereal brands. With lavish addition of sugar and other components that hardly contribute to significant improvements in consumers’ health, cereals definitely should not be seen as the product worth consuming regularly, let alone frequently.
However, the situation changes slightly when introducing granola-based cereal into the picture. Although granola is also often seen a anorther unhealthy product due to the presence of large amounts of sugar in it, granola provides a noticeable energy boost due to the presence of carbohydrates in it. (Barry, 2017). In addition, granola contains additives such as nuts, fruit, and other healthy and useful types of food, which is why it should be considered as a possible food option.
As far as the brand under analysis is concerned, the presence of chocolate makes granola slightly healthier since it retains the essential nutritional value of dark chocolate. Consequently, the desirable consumption frequency of the product in question is once a week. Given the positive impact of chocolate on consumers’ well-being, which recent studies confirm, it is advisable that the specified product should be included into people’s daily meals (Coyle et al., 2020). Due to the presence of dark chocolate in the cereal, its side effects, particularly, the negative effects of sugar, will be levelled with the positive ones of chocolate. In addition, the presence of oats will allow people consuming it to restore their digestive functions.
References
Aiken, K. (2014). Who really makes Trader Joe’s food? (Taste test). Huffington Post. Web.
Barry, R. B. (2017). Competing in tough times: Business lessons from L. l. bean, Trader Joe’s, Costco, and other world-class retailers. Financial Times Prentice.
Clifford, C. (2020). From chatty employees to $5 wine: How Trader Joe’s turns customers into fanatics. CNBC. Web.
Coyle, D. H., Wu, J. H., Di Tanna, G. L., Shahid, M., Taylor, F., Neal, B., & Trevena, H. (2020). The effects of a supermarket-based intervention on the nutritional quality of private-label foods: A prospective study. Nutrients, 12(6), p. 1692.
Dahiya, S. (2020). Sensory and nutritional evaluation of chapatti prepared from composite flours of coarse cereals and tulsi. Journal of Pharmacognosy and Phytochemistry, 9(5), pp. 1541-1546.
Farag, M. A., Xiao, J., & Abdallah, H. M. (2020). Nutritional value of barley cereal and better opportunities for its processing as a value-added food: a comprehensive review. Critical Reviews in Food Science and Nutrition, 1(1), pp. 1-13.
Fayet-Moore, F., McConnell, A., Tuck, K., & Petocz, P. (2017). Breakfast and breakfast cereal choice and its impact on nutrient and sugar intakes and anthropometric measures among a nationally representative sample of Australian children and adolescents. Nutrients, 9(10), p. 1045.
Feiring, C. (2019). Trader Joe’s: Keeping it simple in the digital age. Digital Marketing. Web.
Ichinose, T., & Liu, K. (2017). Modeling Chinese Domestic Cereal Flow due to Stock and Economic Gradient. Int’l J. Soc. Sci. Stud., 5, p. 43.
Krakovsky, M. (2010). Trader Joe’s, Where Less Is More. PsychologyToday. Web.