Healthy eating, regular exercise as well as efforts in balancing work stress. Some people go beyond these basic steps to seek fast results such as consuming health supplements, slimming and low calorie diet, and the purchases of exercise equipment.
Therefore, the market healthy food delivery products cover a large area of diverse and densely populated groups. Although it will be located in a downtown urban setting, it is an area where people travel to eat out and one that is also frequented by tourists. It is also an area known for and catering to the demographic group we are targeting. Health and wellness is still expected to be a big trend in the food industry, analysts and executives said at the Reuters Food and Agriculture Summit. But that interest will be spread across items like those with lower sodium, reduced calories and even a focus on removing allergens from food.
The customer base will come from 3 major segments :
1) LOCAL POPULATION
The city of FT Kuala Lumpur with a year-round population of 1,379,310 is centrally located in the West Malaysia area, out of 70% of total population (2008).
Urban areas are one of the most desirable market locations in Malaysia. Based on the statistic from Department of Statistic Malaysia, despite of FT Kuala Lumpur and FT Putrajaya it is reported that Selangor and Penang have the highest urban population in Malaysia.
Population distribution by states and territories
2) INTERNET USERS
Based on the Internet Usage Statistics, there are 16,902,600 internet users as of June, 2009. It comprise of 64.6% of the population, according to International Telecommunication Union (ITU). That is one of the main reasons why our company has decided to venture into online business.
Internet Usage and Population Growth
3) LEVEL OF UNDERSTANDING OF MALAYSIA DIETARY GUIDELINE (MDG) ACCORDING TO SOCIO-DEMOGRAPHY INDICES
According to research done by Norimah AK, Hwong CS, Liew WC, Ruzita AT, Siti Sa’adiah HN & Ismail MN (2010) shows that more professionals categorized have a good level of understanding, while more non-professionals showed a poor level of understanding.
Level of understanding and occupation level
From the research also shows that the younger age group in this study understood the key messages better than the older age group. This may be due to the younger subjects being tertiary educated than the older age group who were mostly secondary or primary educated. However, the variation in knowledge with age was less clear-cut. Different studies have found different patterns, but it was often the middle-aged group (35-64 years old) who understood the best. Low scores among the younger individuals might be indicative of a lack of interest in health care issues. One would expect that as individuals approach middle age, they become increasingly aware of diseases related to diet. This increased nutrition knowledge might also be associated with having children and seeking out dietary information to ensure that their children were eating healthily.
The food concept and product image of our healthy food delivery will attract 3 different customer profiles :
- The health conscious person of any age or sex -- this includes anyone on a restricted or prescribed diet or those who have committed to a healthy diet.
- The student -- more and more young people have developed healthy eating habits. Some also go through a "health food phase" while in college.
- Curious and open-minded -- "if you try it, you will like it" Through marketing, publicity, and word-of-mouth, people will seek out a new experience and learn that nutritious food can be tasty, fun, convenient, and inexpensive.
Market Trends and The Future
The population and demographics of urban cities in Malaysia have remained steady for the last 14 years. The idea of a health consciousness through nutritional awareness and dietary change has been slowly building for the last 7 years. The extensive government studies and new Food Guide Pyramid have given everyone a new definition of a balanced, healthy diet. This is not a fad but a true dietary trend backed by the scientific and medical community, the media, the government, and endorsed by the big food manufacturers. As the Foodservice 2000 report stated, this trend will be even more important by the turn of the century. As people want to stay home more and cook less our strategy of delivering prepared meals on a weekly or monthly arrangement may be a widespread accepted new way of eating.
Our healthy food delivery programs are great for :
- Busy people who have no time to shop and prepare their meal: in today's fast life people have no time to prepare their lunch and dinners. So healthy food delivery programs are great for this category of people.
- People who concern about their health.
- New cooks who do not know how to cook food. These healthy food delivery programs are for them to overcome the burden of cooking.
- New moms and pregnant ladies who want to take proper and balanced diet: they can use healthy food delivery. For this purpose of they must know about the ingredients of food ordered by them.
- Athletes who need to focus on training.
Business Market
More specifically, the health club and various fitness programmes have spread across urban areas in Malaysia. Despite the relatively low exercise participation among Malaysians, several fitness trends such as the embracement of home exercise equipment; diversified forms of exercise and fitness club popularity are evident among urbanite, more affluent and educated population. Today, fitness clubs in Malaysia are becoming a lifestyle choice. Not only do most international fitness clubs offer a variety of exercise classes from aerobics, kickboxing, salsa dance, and martial arts to yoga, it also encompasses from fitness to beauty and relaxation plus sports injury therapy to friendly social activities and events. Essentially, the fitness industry is moving towards a one-stop, holistic wellness centre concept, appealing to a broader market rather than hard physical exercise. This shift of exercise pattern has implications for the marketers and advertisers. Marketers start to embrace innovative marketing strategies and finding ways to differentiate themselves in the competitive market. Those in the advertising business are also aware of the changes and making lots of adjustments to make their advertisements more appealing to consumers.
In the marketing perspective, consumers adopting a healthy lifestyle can be viewed as a specific market segment. Those manufacturers or vendors who supply health-related products and services that appeal to this segment need to understand the predictors to such health behavior. This facilitates a better decision as to how best in utilizing marketing budgets for advertising, personal selling efforts, and other promotion activities. Exercise is an important component of healthy lifestyle behaviors.
Health Campaigns and Promotion
Ministry of Health has formulated its vision as “to develop a nation of healthy individuals, families and communities, through a health system that is equitable, affordable, efficient, technologically appropriate, environmentally adaptable and consumer-friendly, with emphasis on quality, innovation, health promotion and respect for human dignity, and which promotes individual responsibility and community participation towards an enhanced quality of life” (Ministry of Health 2006).
The government has incorporated research and development activities into the provisions of the Ninth Malaysia Plan to strengthen, develop and supports medical services. In planning for more integrated health campaigns and promotion activities, the government has placed the focus on four major elements: healthy eating, exercise and physical fitness, abstinence from smoking and stress management.
