This is clearly a terrible idea, one of those where you say, “How did this get the green light?”
One night, just as he was falling asleep, a food scientist employed by the company had a light bulb idea! What if ketchup came in slices, like cheese. The perfect portion, cleanly placed on a burger. Further, you could do a whole line of condiments slices - mustard mayo, relish, BBQ sauce, the list is endless! I’ll bet he didn’t sleep a wink that night.
The next day, he calls everyone together, and springs his idea, and they all start excitedly discussing it. The supervisor realizes they are on to something, so he goes to corporate.
“I just had this great idea…” (of course he takes credit), and he explains it to The Suit, who immediately understands that he could sell a 12 pack of slices for the same price as a bottle with a hundred servings, increase profits, and please the Ferengi in the boardroom. So he approves the idea enthusiastically, and goes off to take credit to his bosses.
So it all goes into production after all the testing for spoilage and such is done, and nobody ever bothered to see if it tasted decent, or if consumers would accept it. You know there was very little consumer testing done on this because, well, look at it. It’s essentially a Tomato-flavored Fruit Roll- Up. You don’t even have to taste it to know that this isn’t going to have the proper mouthfeel or taste. Not only that, but the consumer is STILL going to need a bottle of ketchup, because he can’t dip his fries into a SLICE. Does anyone believe this product was an overwhelming success with a whole series of focus tests?
The whole reason this went into production was because they convinced themselves that this awful product had the potential to be wildly profitable, if they could force the consumer to accept it. The consumer did not accept it, and their focus groups probably told them that, but they either ignored it, or maybe just didn’t do focus groups at all. It’s a great profitable idea, why endanger it by getting the opinions of the future consumers?
Some poor bastard at fruit roll-up co finally got the greenlight for his tomato idea, internal testing proved it was terrible, but some marketing genius managed to sell the idea for enough money to offset the r&d costs.
This is clearly a terrible idea, one of those where you say, “How did this get the green light?”
One night, just as he was falling asleep, a food scientist employed by the company had a light bulb idea! What if ketchup came in slices, like cheese. The perfect portion, cleanly placed on a burger. Further, you could do a whole line of condiments slices - mustard mayo, relish, BBQ sauce, the list is endless! I’ll bet he didn’t sleep a wink that night.
The next day, he calls everyone together, and springs his idea, and they all start excitedly discussing it. The supervisor realizes they are on to something, so he goes to corporate.
“I just had this great idea…” (of course he takes credit), and he explains it to The Suit, who immediately understands that he could sell a 12 pack of slices for the same price as a bottle with a hundred servings, increase profits, and please the Ferengi in the boardroom. So he approves the idea enthusiastically, and goes off to take credit to his bosses.
So it all goes into production after all the testing for spoilage and such is done, and nobody ever bothered to see if it tasted decent, or if consumers would accept it. You know there was very little consumer testing done on this because, well, look at it. It’s essentially a Tomato-flavored Fruit Roll- Up. You don’t even have to taste it to know that this isn’t going to have the proper mouthfeel or taste. Not only that, but the consumer is STILL going to need a bottle of ketchup, because he can’t dip his fries into a SLICE. Does anyone believe this product was an overwhelming success with a whole series of focus tests?
The whole reason this went into production was because they convinced themselves that this awful product had the potential to be wildly profitable, if they could force the consumer to accept it. The consumer did not accept it, and their focus groups probably told them that, but they either ignored it, or maybe just didn’t do focus groups at all. It’s a great profitable idea, why endanger it by getting the opinions of the future consumers?
I hope it cost them a lot of money.
An alternate theory:
Some poor bastard at fruit roll-up co finally got the greenlight for his tomato idea, internal testing proved it was terrible, but some marketing genius managed to sell the idea for enough money to offset the r&d costs.