Importing Food Products

Re: [spiers] Importing Food Products

I spoke with an Indian engineer a few years back as to why my emphasis on
"competing on
design" did not play well with Indian start-ups. His explanation was if you can
pull together
the money to get something going, you want to sell a Corning Pyrex Measuring Cup
in India,
not a designer measuring cup. People moving from poverty to middle class want
their first
real live corning measuring cup, not a designer measuring cup, to replace their
coconut shell
of whatever they used before...

fast food is about time-savings, not nutrition. Shopping 3 times a day and
preparing a meal
from raw materials is very time consuming. When there is money to be made, then
a corn dog
and a strawberry shake will do, You can worry about heart disease when you are
60.

Every country is slightly different, and they are all changing. For this reason
I long ago
decided to not bother learning how to sell in other countries. Sell to an
importer at the
border of the other country, and let them worry about what happens inside their
country.

John
On Tue, 6 Jun 2006 20:02:39 -0700, "grp grp" wrote :

>
> Strange irony is in US and western countries, consumers are converting from
> inexpensive burgers and corporate food chains like Safeway markets, to
> expensive organic foods sold at markets like Whole food stores, that is
> grown by small organic farmers in California or other suppliers of food
> chain; whereas when I visited India last year where consumers are converting
> from local inexpensive organic food grown by small farmers in India (sold
> by street vendors), to consuming expensive foods from corporate food
> franchise food chains grown from Monsanto's seeds and fertilizers. It's
> strange how free market forces recycle itself. Dot com boom is hitting east
> and bust hitting west!
>
>
> On 5 Jun 2006 15:15:58 -0000, John Spiers wrote:
> >
> > the same as any other product or service...
> >
> > 1. starting with what you love...
> >
> > 2. solve a problem on the margin...
> > Here you are likely to be improving something already out htere...
> > for example, when USA
> > was exporting nectarines to asia, the asians asked for white-fleshed
> > nectarines instead of
> > orange-flesh nectarines... someone had to develop this new nectraine, and
> > it tends to be the
> > smaller farmers at first...
> >
> > All fruits and vegetables you see at safeway or whole foods were designed
> > for safeway or
> > whole foods... the fuji apple, the romaine lettuce, all of it solving a
> > problem. go back to
> > grego mendel 250 years ago crossing red peas and white peas to get pink
> > peas, and this has
> > been going on for a very long time...today they do 'genetic modification"
> > whatever that is.
> >
> > Barbq and chili are normally matched with beer, but I just saw an ad for
> > BevMo which
> > featured wines to be matched with barbq. I was once served champagne with
> > chili by a host
> > who discovered how it was a natural and delightful pairing. If someone
> > were to even better
> > redesign champagne to match chili, and then have it vinted, every
> > restaurant selling chili
> > would likely welcome the add on sale as well as making news, enhancing its
> > image and
> > growing the business.
> >
> > As news apples and pears are designed and put on the market, one might
> > redesign cheese to
> > match.
> >
> > The process is exactly the same as any other product or service.
> >
> > John
> >
> > On Thu, 01 Jun 2006 18:30:54 -0000, "mgranich" wrote
> > :
> >
> > > How does John's business model fit the importation of food products.
> > > I've read messages from group members importing organic foods, and
> > > wines. But how does one "innovate" a food product? What change do
> > > you make in a wine or a cheese? Where is the importer's value in
> > > importing food products?
> > >
> > > Anthony
> > >
> > >
> > >
> > >
> > >
> > >
> > > Compete on Design!
> > >
> > > www.johnspiers.com

Bookmark this post --- Email this post