It started like a normal day…
Today’s day at the office was just like any other day. Except for one part. Lunch time is always the best part of the day already, but today it was special: We had a product tasting. My internship as a marketing intern takes place at a company called Meatless Farm. You may already have an idea what this is about. Yes, we are a vegan brand and we produce plant-based products like our Meatless Schnitzel, Chickenless Nuggets, or Meatless Sausages. Today it was all about Schnitzel! After working for a couple of hours in the morning, it was lunch time and everyone at the office gathered around our big table in the kitchen and was looking at seven big plates. Each plate depicted a different Schnitzel that was produced by one of our competitors. No one, except our Marketeer who is in charge of recipes, cooking and the visual representation of our products knew which Schnitzel by which brand was on which plate. The seven plates did only have products of our competitors, one of them also had our own Schnitzel and one plate had an actual Schnitzel that was made out of meat. Luckily, as a vegan, I was informed which plate had the actual Schnitzel beforehand so I could skip that one when it came to the actual tasting.
Then we got to the fun part. Everyone tried the different Schnitzel and anonymously filled in a form where we had to answer questions about taste, scent, visual appeal and texture. Obviously, everyone was able to at least tell which Schnitzel was our own Meatless Farm one but even though we know who our biggest competitors are, we could not tell which Schnitzel was made by which brand. The tasting was a very fun experience because even though I had tried many different plant-based Schnitzel, I never had a direct comparison. It was also quite interesting to discuss with my colleagues what we thought about the different Schnitzel and how we would improve them. As a food company, it is important to know where your own products stand compared to other, similar products that are on the market, so we can have an honest point of view where to improve.
After the tasting was done, everyone got back to work. We did those tastings every Wednesday for six weeks for every product that we sell and compared it to our competitors.
A fun experience!