Buyers Beware!

Consumers be scared?




This post is part of an assignment in advertising class. We have been asked to post our findings after some very intriguing research.

How much are we really thinking about what we eat everyday?
I know that I try to put in some thought, but I'm really not thinking about it as much as I would like to say I am.

SO my buyer beware team decided to find out if frozen or fresh foods would be more beneficial to us average students, based on the following four criteria; price, taste, health, and convenience

We surveyed 80 students to find out what's the most important thing on their minds when shopping for food.

We asked students to rank food,price, taste and health in order of importance with 1 being the most and 4 being the least important.

Taste came in 1st with 53% of the number one votes!
Price pulled second with a solid 30%
Health came in third with 11%
and convenience ranked last with only 6%

We were surprised with the results of our surveys, as we were expecting price to rank number one, seeing as a large amount of students are living on a budget and what not. We had also expected convenience to pull more than 6% of the number one votes, we thought that with students being so busy that time efficient meals would be more of a priority.

We also held a taste test to find out if students preferred fresh or frozen meals.
Our test consisted of a homemade vegetable lasagna, a frozen vegetable lasagna which was Bassili's Best 6 Vegetable Lasagna, homemade chicken alfredo, and frozen chicken alfredo which was Stouffer's Skillet Sensations Chicken Alfredo. Our frozen entrées were chosen because they were marked with the Heart and Stroke Foundation's Health Check and were the cheapest choices with that mark. Students were not aware that one of the dishes was frozen, however most were asking after they had tried both.

The results of that test threw us for a bit of a loop. While the homemade lasagna beat the frozen on by an overwhelming amount of the vote (76%), the homemade chicken alfredo lost to the frozen alfredo only capturing 47% of the votes. We had fully expected our homemade versions to win both taste tests, which may have just been our egos..

The results showed us that good frozen dinners could be purchased at a decent price and tasted, in some cases, better than the homemade alternative.

It took us a long time to prepare both of these meals, and even though we were making double than both recipes called for, our times would not have been cut down by much. The homemade lasagna for example required a good half hour to prep and put together as well as another half an hour in the oven. This was with five people cooking it!

We were slightly surprised with some of the ingredients in frozen dinners. It's important to know what you're eating when you buy a frozen dinner as we found out some actually contained preservatives and chemicals EXTREMELY bad for you in larger doses.

We felt that the answer to our question of fresh or frozen could be broken down to answer for each person's individual needs.

If you're looking for a cheap meal..
We reccommend purchasing frozen dinners, they are actually less expensive than making them at home in most cases and they won't rot or go bad!

If you're looking to stay healthy...
You should probably opt for more home cooked meals. You have much more control over the amount of fats and unhealthy things in your food when you prepare it, as well as you lose a ton of preservatives and chemicals. Healthy options are available in frozen foods, but a healthy frozen dinner doesn't necessarily measure up. If you find you can't help throwing in too much butter when you cook, there are good frozen dinners out there if you look.

If you're looking for a time saver...
Your best is probably a frozen dinner. They're quick, and require very little attention and effort to cook! However if you really want to eat homecooked, prepare a meal like a lasagna on sunday night, it keeps well and will last you a while and even though it might take some time on Sunday, it won't take any on Monday, or Tuesday, or Wednesday...

If you're just looking for the best tasting meal out there...
Well that's all up to you. Some people prefer the taste of a frozen meal, and some people prefer home cooking. If you're not the best chef, there's definitely a frozen dinner out there for you. If you are a good chef, we say take the plunge and go for it at home! You can also control how your food tastes when you cook it and can alter things to the way you'd like it!

If you're looking for a good time..
haha just kidding!
But really, we had a great time cooking together and it can be a fun way to spend time with your roommates or to get that lazy boyfriend to do some cooking!