Customer expectations and current offers from food trucks in Helsinki
Nguyen, An (2017)
Nguyen, An
Haaga-Helia ammattikorkeakoulu
2017
All rights reserved
Julkaisun pysyvä osoite on
https://urn.fi/URN:NBN:fi:amk-2017053111267
https://urn.fi/URN:NBN:fi:amk-2017053111267
Tiivistelmä
The aim of this thesis is to determine whether there is a gap between what customers expect and what the food trucks in Helsinki offers in term of diversity of products, price, time and location of service. Do the current offers match with what customers would like to have?
The food truck concept has a long history and since 2008 became an international phenomenon. However, it is still relatively young in Helsinki. There are concerted efforts from different parties included the city’s authorities to support this type of business. The movement of the trend is also obvious with all the events for food truck which are recently held in Helsinki and the massive number of customers got attracted. Besides the all the success stories, the author’s personal observations detect that there are still problems which could easily be improved. In addition to that, there have been no academic studies which lay attention on this type of foodservice business. For all mentioned reason, it is a good time to conduct this research to have better understanding and help with improving food trucks scenario in Helsinki.
Two flows of data are collected for this research. The information about products, price, time and place of operation are gathered from the food trucks. The second stream of data are the opinions of the public. Two data will be analysed and compared to answer the research question. The quantitative method is chosen to be the main approach of this study. However, since the two objects – food trucks and customers – have different characteristics thus two separate techniques were deployed. The data from the trucks are collected via mystery-shopper method where the author personally visit the trucks. The data from customers are gathered via an online-questionnaire. Altogether the final sample includes information from 20 trucks and 429 responses from the survey. The data is then analysed with Microsoft Excel and Webropol Analytic to answer the main question of this research.
The result of this thesis shows that there is a gap between what customers would like to have and what they are offered by the food trucks at the moment. In term of the diversity of products, many cuisine and products beloved by customers are missing in the market. With the popular products, which already existed like burgers, hot dogs, customers also express that they would like to have them with higher quality. In general, the public consider current prices as being reasonable. However, the amount of money they willing to pay is actually lower than the market prices. Customers affirm that they would like receive their service from food trucks elsewhere than the city center of Helsinki and in festival venues. The operational times of food trucks are suggested to be expanded, not only clustered for festival or weekend nights.
Even though the data sample is relatively big in the context of a Bachelor thesis, it is not appropriate to generalize the whole market. Moreover, the initial intention of this research is not to judge whether the food trucks in Helsinki are good or bad. The best use of this result is to help food truck operators have better understanding about customer wishes. The information is then can be exploited to improve or adjust their business accordingly.
The food truck concept has a long history and since 2008 became an international phenomenon. However, it is still relatively young in Helsinki. There are concerted efforts from different parties included the city’s authorities to support this type of business. The movement of the trend is also obvious with all the events for food truck which are recently held in Helsinki and the massive number of customers got attracted. Besides the all the success stories, the author’s personal observations detect that there are still problems which could easily be improved. In addition to that, there have been no academic studies which lay attention on this type of foodservice business. For all mentioned reason, it is a good time to conduct this research to have better understanding and help with improving food trucks scenario in Helsinki.
Two flows of data are collected for this research. The information about products, price, time and place of operation are gathered from the food trucks. The second stream of data are the opinions of the public. Two data will be analysed and compared to answer the research question. The quantitative method is chosen to be the main approach of this study. However, since the two objects – food trucks and customers – have different characteristics thus two separate techniques were deployed. The data from the trucks are collected via mystery-shopper method where the author personally visit the trucks. The data from customers are gathered via an online-questionnaire. Altogether the final sample includes information from 20 trucks and 429 responses from the survey. The data is then analysed with Microsoft Excel and Webropol Analytic to answer the main question of this research.
The result of this thesis shows that there is a gap between what customers would like to have and what they are offered by the food trucks at the moment. In term of the diversity of products, many cuisine and products beloved by customers are missing in the market. With the popular products, which already existed like burgers, hot dogs, customers also express that they would like to have them with higher quality. In general, the public consider current prices as being reasonable. However, the amount of money they willing to pay is actually lower than the market prices. Customers affirm that they would like receive their service from food trucks elsewhere than the city center of Helsinki and in festival venues. The operational times of food trucks are suggested to be expanded, not only clustered for festival or weekend nights.
Even though the data sample is relatively big in the context of a Bachelor thesis, it is not appropriate to generalize the whole market. Moreover, the initial intention of this research is not to judge whether the food trucks in Helsinki are good or bad. The best use of this result is to help food truck operators have better understanding about customer wishes. The information is then can be exploited to improve or adjust their business accordingly.