Peaches & Passion
Listening to this podcast will be an hour well spent. This episode of Savvy Women podcasts sees Peaches
Kemp speak to The Positive Economist, Susay Hayes Culleton about her and sister
Domini’s 17 years in the food business.
Passion is the over-riding theme but Peaches gives loads of tips and
insights. Some are:
· Don’t
spend more than you can afford to pay back – this advice from their dad meant
that the Kemp sisters never got into property during the Celtic Tiger years and
saw them double their business during the recession. Peaches admits she has a passion for finance
and ‘getting under the bonnet’ cost-wise!
· Take
the pulse of your market – they do it by travelling and seeing food trends
around the world, being very well read on those trends, talking to customers
and suppliers at home and speaking to millennials about what they want to eat;
· Don’t
be afraid to ask for and to give advice – amazingly Peaches said she is
delighted when staff tell her they want to learn everything from her and then
go and set up in competition. She says is it ‘music to my ears’!
(food trends image from www.kqed.org)
Consult the customer as part of NPD
Passions rears its head again in this Q&A article in
the Irish Independent – as the key characteristic of a successful entrepreneur,
as stated by Feargal Quinn. Charisma,
being customer-centric and watching the numbers are the other traits!
Another question is on the pitfalls that someone about to
launch a sports nutrition product should look out for. Feargal says investment
in branding, getting your price model right and most important of all – consult
the customer as part of the product development.
Quality Crusaders
Not all consumers are driven by price – according to this
article from IMJ/Adword, data from TGI shows that 13% of the Irish population –
or nearly 500,000 people – are motivated by superior quality. And they are happy to pay a premium for
it. Many of us want these types of
customers. Quality Crusaders are more
likely to be AB, over 65 and earning over €75,000. From a media consumption point of view, they
like radio, consumer magazines and are more likely to read product reviews.
