PRESS RELEASE SUNNYVALE, CA – With a clear understanding of what’s motivating their customers’ decisions, food companies can position product information and brand awareness in beneficial ways that improve customer satisfaction and drive business.
One company in the food traceability space has come up with a new tool that’s helping companies achieve these goals, one QR code at a time.
HarvestMark, BB #:311190 a division of Trimble Inc. (NASDAQ: TRMB), has developed a tool that allows food companies to apply a unique QR code to their products, revealing key customer insights such as where and why they bought the food item, and how they consumed it.
This high value intel is being used by sophisticated produce marketers today to tap into customer habits and buying preferences that lead to powerful marketing opportunities and higher revenues.
This innovative HarvestMark tool seamlessly gathers direct consumer feedback and data, answering such questions as:
- Do they like the product? How was their shopping experience (quality, appearance, pricing, services, etc.)?
- Where did they buy the product? We will provide both store name and specific geographic location
- How did they use and/or consume the product(s)? The data food companies receive from their HarvestMark QR code provides customized intel that will support and inform companies’:
- Branding and marketing message
- Production planning
- Regional and global variances
Here’s how it works: HarvestMark provides brand owners such as berry companies with a series of unique QR codes that are applied to each individual clamshell. When consumers scan the QR code with their cell phone’s camera, they can find out where their product was grown, get information about the supplier and their growing practices, and receive coupons, recipes, and usage ideas.
The consumer is also prompted to provide feedback to the brand owner about the quality of the product, their eating experience, and can even be invited to join an online consumer panel. In addition, the location and timing of the scan are recorded, along with the product and brand information.
Once this information is gathered by HarvestMark, it is analyzed and used to develop actionable market research as well as ‘voice of customer’ reports and dashboards.
For example, the berry giant Driscoll’s has developed a proprietary Consumer Advisory Panel — a loyalty program that rewards consumers who rate their berry-eating experience by completing a simple online survey. Millions of completed consumer surveys have provided this berry company with valuable insights by capturing details, including berry varieties, global growing regions, and individual customer locations.
Camposol, the Peruvian food multinational uses the HarvestMark system to evaluate customer perceptions in China, where performing traditional broad-based market research is difficult and costly.
A third berry shipper with global growing operations used this program to make critical supply chain decisions based on insights generated by HarvestMark’s proprietary analytics.
This company’s product marketing team was able to identify a particular berry variety that performed well within a few days of harvest, but whose flavor and quality declined significantly within a week of harvest. This information gathered through consumer feedback from the scanned QR codes provided the company with sufficient information to discontinue and replace the offending variety. In short, this information resulted in better product quality, a reduction in credits and a measurable price premium.
For more information:
HarvestMark-Trimble
Name: Minos Athanassiadis
Tel: +310.200.6438
e-mail: minos_athanassiadis@trimble.com
