7a Testing the hypotheses

1.     The opportunity I chose to further in learning about is one from my 6A assignment. The article from the 6A assignment was one of economic change and was titled “General Mills hit by slumping yogurt, cereal sales.”

2.     The opportunity I identified off of this article was for the General Mills company along with many others to change over to a more organic and sustainable source of ingredients. The reason for a slump in cereal sales is many people have turned away from cereal at breakfast and started to eat healthier foods such as eggs, bacon, spinach, etc. all of these things have turned into a new breakfast staple for a healthier lifestyle. Yogurt on the other hand, is slumping because people are turning to organic “Greek” yogurts. According to the article General Mills “Yoplait Greek yogurt” failed to compete with other brands.

·      Who: General Mills and customers who have healthy lifestyles and want organic, and healthy foods for themselves and their families.

·      What: Change products over to healthier, organic sources that people that genuinely care about their health will conform too.

·      Why: General Mills sales have reduced drastically since healthy living movements have started in the United States. A growing amount of people old and young are changing their lifestyles to promote healthier living.

3.                

·      On top of General Mills, I am sure other companies that have not adapted their products to meet consumers “healthy” needs are not experiencing major growth and sales within their product lines.

·      I think mainly the what just includes the cereal and the yogurt that general mills produces because those are the two that are mentioned. I am sure that other things are declining to due to health kicks that everyone has went on, just not as drastically as cereal and yogurt products.

·      The need for healthy and sustainable resources come from people wanting to better their lives, and better the world. Most people will believe this to be true while some others say that cereal and yogurt is declining because people would rather not eat breakfast in most cases, and if they do not waste time eating a bowl of cereal over a fast food breakfast sandwich.

4.     So, I started by telling my 5 subjects some background about the case and what all entails the case. So, then I asked who they thought needed to change. 3 out of 5 said that the company is responsible for their actions and should change to suit the consumers need. All 3 of these were college age students, 2 from a class I am in and my high school best friend. The other 2 people I interviewed were my parents, and they both said that if the company didn’t want to change products then they shouldn’t because they are probably still making loads of profit and stick by what they think is ethical and what they traditionally value. So, they believed that the consumers had a responsibility to either like the products they were selling, or to find another company that produces what their taste requires.                                                                               The 3 that believed general mills was who needed to change, I asked whether or not they thought other corporations could benefit from changing products to fit consumers healthy living needs and they all said that they believed in some way, shape, or form that any company that started developing healthier products that it would create a larger market share for them. The other two both believed that General mills as an corporation could potentially affect other corporations because General Mills is such a large company.                                                                                                                                 Out of the 5 people I interviewed they believed the “why” that cereal and yogurt made by general mills was declining because of 3 different reasons the first which was chosen by mom and one of my classmates was saying that the reason they needed to change was to promote healthy living of people. The second was by my dad and high school best friend and they both said changes needed to occur because there needed to be a more sustainable approach at food products to keep the environment healthy. The third was proposed by another class mate that basically said that the company needed to change just to maintain profits not to help people or the environment.

5.     Basically, what I learned from the interviewers was that older people believed less in the fact that the company needed to conform but the actual consumers needed to conform. Younger people tended to side with the people. I learned that consumers as a whole seemed like they are less likely to switch to a different food company because of there being a health issue they are concerned about. I think these interviews really helped me understand how customers see certain companies and develop relationships to the products.