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Nessun Dorma:
From Concept to Customer
by Brian Martell
Heritage recently released a new high end
coffee by the name of "Nessun Dorma." The name comes from Puccini's
opera Turandot and roughly translated means "none shall
sleep." Besides the irony of the name being associated with coffee, a lot
of thought went into the composition of the product and its intended market.
The Editor of Canadian Vending, who
just happens to be a coffee lover, suggested we do an article on the process
of going from idea to product. Herein lies one of my favourite advantages of
small/medium sized companies— the idea to product time frame is espresso
quick. While we still have a little way to go before all the T's are crossed,
Nessun Dorma is now available in neutral packaging to our customers after a
mere three months of development. From start to finish, many different aspects
of the process had to be addressed.
•
The identification of the needed product from the customer.
•
The research and development of the product.
•
Internal testing to meet established criteria.
•
Market testing.
•
Introduction of the new product through proper marketing.
As a sales driven company, many of our new
products come from customer demand. We analyze the feasibility of the proposed
product, establish associated costs/benefits, and then decide if the project
should be pursued. The intended market for Nessun Dorma is operators looking
to fill their product line niche for a high end coffee.
Determining the style of the product
in the coffee business means arriving at a certain taste profile. As coffee is
an organic substance prone to variations, achieving a consistent taste profile
for any product is more of an art than a science.
When there is no target to hit, as with a new product, you establish the
criteria for what is to be achieved.
With Nessun Dorma, the criteria were (a)
dark roast (easy enough) with (b) no bitterness (harder) while (c) maintaining
an excellent body/aroma/taste balance (harder still). Using only prime washed
arabicans from three continents, roasted just on the cusp of
"French," and packed at a minimum weight of 2.25 oz., Nessun Dorma
was born.
We sampled the product using different
demographic focus groups and requested feedback on their reactions (read, I
sent it off to various people I know and asked them "whadyathink").
Determining that the product had a broad-based appeal, Nessun Dorma was first
launched in a fractional foodservice/OCS format, with whole beans made
available shortly after and a vending format to follow.
I’ll always remember my college marketing
professor drilling into our semi-impressionable heads the famous "Four P’s"—
Product, Packaging, Promotion and Price. As this is being written, the new
packaging design is gently being coaxed out of the creative imagination of our
artists who assure me that it will make a bold statement. We’ll sample the
art work using different demographic focus groups, requesting feedback on
their emotional reactions (read, I’ll send it off to various people I know
and ask them "whadyathink"). As the vast majority of our customers
are either in foodservice or OCS, the look of the packaging is not as critical
as it would be if it were a retail item, but we still wish to make a good
impression all the same.
Almost all new products follow the same
procedure to fruition. The level of complication in product development
expands proportionately to the size of the company doing the developing. In
those companies that are production driven, launching a new product is
somewhat different in that the first question is "can it fit our
manufacturing culture?" While the success of new products is a totally
different subject altogether, here’s to Nessun Dorma being as popular as its
namesake.
© 2001 Brian Martell
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Contact Brian Martell: (800) 300-6752
Email: Brian@heritage-coffee.com
