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It helps remove unwanted surface residue from fertilizer, pesticide, soil, dirt, wax, chemicals and there remainders such as finger prints from people handling produce. Flt claims to remove 98% more chemicals and wax than Just water alone. And Fit wont affect the taste of your fruit and vegetables because it rinses away thoroughly. Different types of produce require different kinds of care including the way they are cleaned. The product Is available for the home and commercial market. Flt Fruit and Vegetable Wash for home use and Flt Antibacterial Produce Cleaner for a more heavy duty commercial usage.
The Fit Fruit and Vegetable Wash comes in two different forms: a spray or a soak. Spray is best suited from any produce that is easy to hold in your hand and simple to rub such as apples, tomatoes, pears, celery, carrots and others. The soak on other strawberries or things that have lots of nooks and crannies such as spinach, lettuce, cauliflower and broccoli. Fit in soak is often used when cleaning a bunch of produce. There are three easy steps on how to use Fit. For the soak version, do as follows: 1) Pour 2) Soak and 3) Rinse. In a half gallon or two litters of water, pour one cup full of the fruit and vegetable wash.
Let produce soak for a minute and rinse under the running water. While for the spray version, steps will be: 1) Spray 2) Run and 3) Rinse. Spray and make sure it covers all the surface of the fruit or vegetable. Rub for about twenty seconds and rinse under running water. On the other hand, in the commercial sector, most produce is cleansed in chlorine source, either from bleach or from chlorine dioxide. But these chemical compounds become ineffective in very dirty water, such as spinach or potato flume. With these, Fit’s Antibacterial Produce Cleaner helps overcome these problems when washing fresh cut and other processed produce.
Fit is made from natural surfactants hat act as “wetting agents” which are designed to lift off and kill the pathogens even in dirty water. Fit is able to get into gaps and nooks that other washing systems may not continue to kill bacteria via its patented surfactant technology. Fit, prides itself as the only produce wash certified by Kosher and Orthodox Union, and recommended by the American Vegetarian Association. It is also endorsed by Lovable Metabolic Institute and Metabolic Code Diet, a registered Dietician and Chief Clinical Nutritionist. B. Procter & Gamble/ Health Pro Brand Inc.
People in the United States were eating more fruits and vegetables. However, between 40 to 75% of what they eat is grown outside the country. Imported produce carry more pesticide and residue, waxy coatings, dirt and other contaminants. This is one of the reasons why Americans became more concerned on food safety. A research conducted by food science faculty at Idaho, Washington indicated that fruit and vegetable wash can dramatically decrease the number of disease-causing organisms. With these, Procter and Gamble aimed to change the game in washing fresh produce from the traditional way of washing fruits and vegetables by water alone.
It introduced a product made from ingredients like citric acid and distilled grapefruit oil that can kill pathogens on food and bacteria like Salmonella and E. Coli. So FIT Fruit and Vegetable Wash was born. P, based in Cincinnati, Ohio, launched it in the US market on year 2000. In the same year, P introduced another line of produce named FIT Antibacterial Produce cleaner, that was intended for use in the commercial market by food service and restaurant operators and other related institutions. In the Philippines, P launched FIT Fruit and Vegetable Wash in year 1999.
It as endorsed by Diana Bonneville. However, it was not successful in growing the FIT’s market in the country due to cultural and social background of the Filipinos. P&G habit of purchasing in small quantity. Not for long, in May 17,2001, P&G announced plans to discontinue both Fit Fruit and Vegetable Wash and Professional Line FIT Antibacterial Produce Cleaner effective September 28 of the same year. Their official statement were as follows: “Fit was reviewed and evaluated against our entire portfolio of established brands and upstream initiatives,” said Procter & Gamble Professional Relations Manager Kay
Prayer. “We have concluded that the overall at-home and food service produce rinse market is currently too small for Procter & Gamble. ” In relation to P&G announcement to pull out the product, the United Fresh Fruit and Vegetable Association expressed their respect for the company’s decision. According to the United President Tom Steele “The Association applauds P&G for its integrity that it never chose to market it by inflaming fears or concerns about produce safety. They chose a responsible course in their marketing, when fear campaign might have produced greater consumer sales.
Come 2003, Health Pro Brands Inc. , was granted to license to market and distribute P&G’s Fit Fruit and Vegetable Wash. It was eventually sold to them in 2006. Health Pro Brand is established by Todd Wightman. He is also the co-founder of Redo Brands which purchased from P&G the Godly@ laundry detergent and Biz@ color safe bleach brands. Health Pro Brand considers purchasing existing consumer brands that have an opportunity to substantially grow with a new marketing approach or technology improvement. In the market today, Fit continues to be available for sale in the U. S.
It is available in big grocery store and available for purchase in online websites such as www. Trinity. Com, www. Amazon. Com, www. Buyout. Co. UK and www. Walter. Com to name a few. While in the Philippines, Fit Fruit and Vegetable Wash is no longer available in. However, other brands such as Herbal and Vestiges can be purchased in SMS and Landmark grocery. II. Problem Statement Provided that P&G’s introduction of Fit fruit and vegetable wash failed in 1999 and its distribution was discontinued in 2001, what is a better option for P&G to take at present time: to re-launch same product in the Philippines or not?
Ill. Objectives A. To understand why the product launch of Fit failed in the Philippines B. To identify the perceived value and acceptability of Filipinos on the use of fruit and vegetable wash in cleaning their fruits and vegetables. A. -rows A. L External Environment Threats 1. The Filipino tradition in food handling will be hard to break. Filipinos also believed that washing fruits and vegetables too much with water can remove important vitamins and nutrients that our body needs daily. 2.
Existence of water and salt or water and vinegar as an alternative wash. 3. Philippines has an abundant natural resource of water that is more accessible for consumers to wash their produce 4. Economic condition of the country may affect the buying decision of the people 5. Availability of other fruit and vegetable wash that is currently offered in the market with almost the same ingredients and benefits offered – – such as Environ, Veggie Wash, Environment, Eat Cleaner. Thus, brand loyalty will be hard to achieve. 6.
Small market size or volume of customer demand for fresh produce wash/ sanitized may not be enough to sustain large returns and profit Opportunities 1. Filipinos are becoming more health conscious thus practicing a healthier lifestyle 2. Endorsement from Bureau of Food and Drugs (FAD), Department of Health (DOD), and others authorities A. 2 Internal Environment Weaknesses: 1 . It’s an additional cost compared to free water 2. Serving the “business market” is not P&G’s strong point. Promotional campaign 4. Limited distribution channel in the Philippines Strengths: 3.
Ineffective 2. Kills 99. 9% of harmful bacteria, like e. Coli and salmonella, that have been associated with food borne illness 3. The only produce wash certified by Kosher and Orthodox Union, and commended by the American Vegetarian Association. 4. P&G has more than 300 consumer product offering in the market. It is an authority when it comes to serving the “consumer market”. 5. Brand equity since it’s carried by P&G 6. Safer, more environmentally friendly alternative to chlorine type cleaners in large scale commercial produce processing facilities 7.
Helps improve your bottom line through improved efficiency, by reducing downtime and employee injury resulting from chemical accidents B. Consumer Behavior Figure 1: Model of Consumer Behavior 8. 1 4 AS Product Home (Fit Soak and Spray Forms) Fit in spray form is for the direct and convenient application for easy-to-hold produce like apple, carrot, celery, etc. , while the soak is for produce that is difficult to hold or difficult to rub, or with lots of nooks and crannies, like lettuce, spinach, broccoli and cauliflower.
Commercial – Fit Antibacterial Produce Cleaner Basically, it is Just another version to wash big volumes of produce in commercial establishments like restaurants, school cafeterias and commissaries. Price Since Fit is no longer available in the Philippines, there is limited data and we loud not show its price as well as the comparison against other competitors. But to adapt to the buying behavior of Filipinos, P&G introduced Fit in sachet pack in order Public Supermarket and the prices of which are as follows: Fit Spray (353 ml) $5. 19 and Fit soak (mall) $8. 9. Place/Distribution Philippines – Fit can only be found in big supermarkets which are mostly in NCR U. S. – Fit is available in major grocery stores like “Public” and is placed alongside with dish washing soaps and it can also be purchased online. The product is offered and advertised mostly in restaurants and government commissaries. Promo Philippines – Ms. Diana Bonneville was chosen by P&G as Fit’s celebrity endorser U. S. – Mostly caters the “Commercial Markets” like the Defense Department which made it mandatory to all of its commissaries to use Fit.
It also encouraged other food manufacturing/processing businesses to pre-wash their produce with Fit and in return the products will have a sticker on the packaging: “Pre-washed with Fit” which is said to distinguish them from competition and will give the consumers a reason to choose their products. 8. 2 Consumer Psychology and Characteristics Fit Fruit and Vegetable Wash is a good product. Even, it’s nice to have. It makes you feel safer that what you are about to eat is clean. It compliments one’s need for safety. However, people are more complex. They don’t react on a product based solely on the surface level need.
Their buying behavior is greatly influenced by a lot of factors. Refer to Figure 1. Among these, cultural factors have the most and deepest influence. In the case of Fit being introduced in the Philippines, the group has deliberated on factors and some Filipino behaviors which could have contributed to Fit’s failure. 1 . Abundance of safe waters in the Philippines Being a collection of islands, Philippines has one of the cleaner water sources. In fact, in October 2012, DOD Director Dry. Eduardo Junior even announced that water the health because it contains essential minerals (HDTV/Sunned, 2012). 2.
Philippines is an agricultural country The Philippines is rich in resources, being an agricultural country. 47% of the 30 million hectares are agricultural lands. We do a lot of exports more than we import in terms of fruits and vegetables produce. More so, being a tropical country, most of the fruits and vegetables that we consume everyday are available locally DULLS-Manila, 2013). As we know, locally produced products have lesser risk of contamination. Also, preservatives and pesticide uses are lowered because distribution and transfers are essentially made only within the locality (Watson, 2013).
Meaning, our locally produced fruits and vegetable are not only fresher and organic here, they are also safer. 3. Long tradition of washing with tap water Filipinos wash their fruits and vegetables right before cooking or eating them like everyone else. But unlike in other countries, there has been no outbreak or wide- spread threat of E. Coli in the country. And so far, washing with water has been doing its Job to clean fruits and vegetable for Filipinos. In fact, there have been studies that the simplest and still most effective way of rinsing your fruits and vegetable is with running tap water.
The key, it seemed, was friction – the mechanical action of rubbing of the produce while rinsing (Parker-pope, 2010). More so, even in the States, studies have been done that rinsing fruits and vegetables with distilled water or cold tap water is Just as effective as washing with products such as Fit (Crower, et al, 2004), It is because of this that Filipinos have been accustomed ND comfortable with washing their fruits and vegetables with water alone. There’s a blob in the net which the group stumbled upon, which collected a few opinion from Filipinos saying that washing with water alone is enough to clean produces (Bianca, 2004). . Washing too much or soaking the produce long takes away its nutrients Have you heard your mom or local dietician tell you not to wash or soak fruits and vegetables in water for too long? It has been long believed by Filipinos that doing this takes away the nutrients from the fruits and vegetable. How true? Oddly, there seemed to have some truth in this. Some of the group’s research leads us to believe that this idea is widely spread not only in the Philippines but in Asia. It is said that washing fruits and vegetable removes some water soluble vitamins like a-complex and vitamin C (Outthinking, 2012).
Whether this is true or not, this is indeed a behavior Filipino market has. And this greatly affects perception towards products like fruit and vegetable wash, which Fit should have been able to understand. When you accidentally drop your food, instead of putting it straight to trash, you will usually hear “Walla pang 5 seconds! It is believed that it’s still clean and safe to eat it you pick it up within 5 seconds. For sure you have had your fair share of uttering this line in your younger years. The group did not know the origins of this but it seemed to be widely known among Filipinos.
There’s even some Faceable pages with has this lines. Most of the nutritionists may disagree to this kind of practice. Regardless of the type of surface, your food would most likely be contaminated in less than 5 seconds of contact. In fact, the food left on the table would start accumulating bacteria after 45 minutes or so. We know this is true, but e still believe the “5-second rule” nonetheless. This is another strange behavior Filipinos have that may influence perception towards fruit and vegetable wash products. . 3 Consumer Buying and Purchases Decisions In the process of understanding consumer behavior, we followed the five- stage model of the consumer buying process. The buying decision is considered the critical point of this process because according to Kettle and Keller (2012), the actual purchase of a product will highly depend on all the experiences in learning, choosing, using and even disposing of a product which are all part of a customer’s buying session and has consequences long afterward.
From the five-stage model of the Consumer Buying Process, it shows that a typical consumer passes through problem recognition, information search, evaluation of alternatives, purchase decision, and postprocessor behavior. However, consumers don’t always pass through all five stages – they may skip or reverse some. Applying this concept on the marketing strategy of Fit used in the Philippines, P should have looked into the following: 1 . Problem recognition. The buyer recognizes a problem or need triggered by internal or external stimuli.
For instance, the need for fruit and vegetable wash in the U. S. Was triggered by the 1999 Escherichia Coli (E. Coli) outbreak in New York which was traced from water consumption of tap water, ice, snow cones, and lemonade. This E. Coli outbreak became the largest one in the U. S. , where 1,000 people were sickened and two people were killed. In New York alone, about 200 cases of E. Coli infection occur yearly (Key, 2006). Much of the fresh produce that comes into the U. S. Is imported and that globalization has introduced even more food safety risks.
In 2000-2002, many states outbreaks of Hepatitis A from Mexican strawberries, and in 1996, there were 1,500 cases of cyclopedias from contaminated imported raspberries. Many people in the U. S. Overreacted to these news stories about food contamination and they stop buying produce for a while because of the potential danger for contamination from E. Coli and other harmful bacteria in fruits & vegetables. In order to prevent or reduce the incidence of bedroom illnesses (food poisoning), the U. S. FDA made various efforts to instill food safety consciousness to the public. Although the U. S.
FDA did not require households or food handlers to use of food antibacterial cleaners, produce wash became a trademark of food safety in American households, restaurants, hospitals, and has been especially endorsed by the vegans. Thus, marketers need to identify the circumstances that trigger a particular need by gathering information from a number of consumers. As in the case of Filipino consumers, P marketers may need to increase consumer motivation so a potential purchase gets serious consideration. 2. Information Sources were classified into four groups: a. Personal – family, friends, neighbors, acquaintances .
Commercial – advertising, Web sites, salesperson, dealers, packaging, displays c. Public – mass media, consumer-rating organizations d. Experiential – handling, examining, using the product Kettle and Keller point out that generally, although consumers receive the greatest amount of information about a produce from commercial sources, the most effective information often comes from personal and experiential sources, or public sources that are independent authorities. Commercial sources inform consumers about the product whereas personal sources legitimate or evaluate the product’s effectiveness.
In the case of Fit, P&G Philippines produced a TV commercial with Diana Bonneville, a well-known Filipino actress, endorsing Fit as a 100% natural wash that ensures that the food we eat is clean and pesticide-residue free. With the large media network of P&G, it can be assumed that P&G has fully utilized all commercial and public sources during Fit’s launch in 1999 before it was experiential sources that would motivate them to buy Fit during those times. It failed to penetrate the Philippine market with its traditional practice of washing fruits and vegetables using water alone.