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Marketing At Kudler Fine Foods

Introduction

Kudler Fine Foods is an upscale, high-end gourmet food retailer with three stores located in the San Diego, California area. “Kudler Fine Foods is committed to providing our customers with the finest selection of the very best foods and wines so that your culinary visions can come true” (University of Phoenix, 2007). In keeping with their company philosophy, Kudler has decided to enhance business by offering catering services. Successfully marketing the new catering services will be critical to the successful operation of this new venture. This paper will outline the important concepts and factors Kudler should be aware as they expand into catering. Market research, marketing mix, use of technology, and integrating organic produce into the catering business will be discussed and their impact on Kudler.
Market Research

Marketing research can be defined as “the process of defining a marketing problem and opportunity, systematically collecting and analyzing information, and recommending actions” (Kerin, Hartley, Berkowitz, & Rudelius, 2006). Kudler conducted two internal market surveys, in 2006 and 2007, which can be used to assess the future success of their new catering service. While the surveys contain useful information regarding customer satisfaction at the stores, they do not contain information relative to the proposed catering service. The studies did not ask basic questions such as, “If available, would you use a catering service provided by Kudler?” or “How much would you be willing to pay for a catering service provided by Kudler?” The company should create and implement a survey that is more specific to the services they are exploring. However, Kudler has budgeted for other market research that should provide useful information to management. The research includes market size/opportunity studies, food marketing trend studies, and services benchmarking studies. The market research data should prove valuable to...