Lobster is sold today on a non-branded commodity basis with little regard for consumer desires and needs. The opportunity to build a Maine lobster brand is threatened by new Country of Origin regulations since today basic meat extraction practices take place primarily in Canada. Creating a brand of value-added Maine lobster products offers a significant opportunity to turn a commodity driven sale into a marketing sucess. The purpose of this study is to understand how packaging and processing technology can be used to create value-added lobster products to fill unmet consumer needs. OBJECTIVES: Identify and evaluate processing and packaging technologies that can be used to produce ready to prepare lobster products. Assess the size and scope of the market for refrigerated ready to prepare lobster products. Identify profile characteristics of buyer segments and identify anticipated target buyer needs. Evaluate several product concepts with consumers and select retailers. Identify follow-on product development efforts and strategic marketing assessments to include in a Phase II proposal. APPROACH: A comprehensive secondary research study will be undertaken of all conveniently packaged seafood products currently being marketed. Product, pricing, and branding tactics will be identified. Samples will be acquired. Processing and packaging technologies used will be identified. A report will be written with these findings. This information will be used to develop a questionnaire and identify company executives we will seek to interview. One-on-one interviews will be conducted with senior executives at companies that have successfully introduced branded seafood products in the marketplace. We will obtain key success factors and the major challenges they faced in bringing these products to market. We will also seek their opinions on the profile characteristics of buyer segments for this type of product, and their thoughts on buyer needs. Upscale supermarkets throughout New England will be visited and seafood buyers at these establishments will be solicited to provide input on the needs of this distribution/sales channel. Key processing and packaging technologies will be identified and evaluated. Vendors offering this equipment and technologies will be contacted. This evaluative step will focus on identifying product benefits these technologies offer in marketing lobster and potentially meeting possible retailer and consumer needs. These technologies will also be assessed based on cost and ease of adoption into a new processing facility that would likely be located in Maine or some other New England location. Saltwater will use the research findings from the previous tasks as the basis for developing and articulating concept solutions to be field tested with potential target buyers and retailers. We will use a web survey for data collection so that concept images can be embedded into the survey. Both trade-off and conjoint analysis techniques will be employed. Respondents will be forced to make trade-offs for various scenarios. The objective of the conjoint analysis will be to associate levels of influence on demand of each attribute and level tested. As a result, we can build a model that replicates possible product configurations and estimate demand based on that product design. In addition to the consumer interviews, Saltwater will return to retailers previously interviewed to review the findings from this consumer survey and obtain their reactions. Once this primary research study is completed, Saltwater will bring together its team of experts for a one-day brainstorming session to review the research findings and obtain their input and reactions to marketing implications and strategic thrusts that Saltwater sees emanating from this work. Following this session, Saltwater will compose a high level Strategic Marketing Roadmap for developing these products and building a brand around them.Preliminary product development plans will be written. These plans will form the basis for a Phase II SBIR proposal
