Marketing Plan Sweet Sensation Catering Service Essay Example

frequently return late from their one hour lunch breaks. After due investigation, it was confirmed that distance of the companies from the high street retail outlets and station was the main factor behind their lateness. In order to solve this problem, the company sought to employ the services of Sweet sensation catering service that had initially identified this niche and had previously submitted a business proposal in order to provide convenient-lunchtime diners with purchased lunch.

Sweet sensation's overall objective is to expand its business by supplying meals to a larger group of companies thereby increasing its clientele base. Thus, a marketing plan is prepared to achieve this objective. The demand for sandwiches keeps rising dramatically in the UK, while consumers now consume more than two billion sandwiches a year. In further sections, the situation analysis of the company would shed some light on several catering firms in the locality and by this I mean identify competitors. The external and internal challenges will be discussed using the PEST analysis and SWOT analysis tool.

While the marketing strategy will briefly talk about the companies objectives, market segmentation, targeted market and positioning strategy that will be used to capture the size of the market that we are forecasting. Furthermore, a marketing mix has been carried out to analysis the quality of service that is being provided to our customers. Finally a cost evaluation has been carried out to that extensively addresses the expenses that will be incurred in order not to exceed our estimated expenditure.

Situation Analysis

The catering market remains a major sector of the UK economy. It supports more than 115,000 companies, and it provides employment for around 1.8 million people (Key note,

2007). Sweet sensation is a new start-up catering company and considering the competition that Sweet sensation would be facing from high street shops like Tesco, Greggs and other retail outlet shops that cater for lunch meals for workers, marketing will be crucial to the success of Sweet sensation and future profitability for expansion.

Sweet sensation will offer home-made, affordable, quality, healthy meals to companies like Green lantern, Mitsubishi, Capital Alliance in Edgware, Ford Motors, Global com in Burnt oak area of north London. An analysis has been carried out using the PEST and SWOT analysis tool to consider the external and internal factors that Sweet sensation might experiment while running the business.

Market Audit on the Catering Service Market

The UK Catering market is vast and varied with a total of 115,195 UK VAT-based enterprises in 2007, which was engaged in catering and allied trades. The core market in the UK catering industry includes restaurants, fast-food and takeaways, contract catering and foodservice management, hotels, public houses. Other sectors with a significant catering element include licensed clubs (such as casinos and nightclubs), holiday camps and villages, and caravan/camping sites. The total catering industry in the UK is dominated by small, independent businesses. The UK fast-food and takeaways market was worth an estimate of 9.33bn in 2007, growth in this market has varied considerably from one sector to another over the review period (2003 to 2007).

The Sandwich sector holds a steady share of the total fast-food and takeaways market, at just over a third (36.6% in 2007), (Key note, 2007).The small business sector of this market is run as a profit making business. This section of the market falls into

sandwich sector of the fast-food and takeaways market. The catering service will be lower priced with most of its revenue coming from workers meal orders and selling to shops on the high street retail outlets. The lunch meal supply will be on a regular basis and there will be customer loyalty promotions. The money will be pay as you go services.

Market Trends

The demand in several sectors of the fast-food market continues to be affected by price discounting and concerns about obesity. Due to these concerns, other healthier meals like sandwiches, panini have seen a significant in demand. This has helped to boost the sales of these products, so retailers are introducing innovative products and concepts, such as healthier ranges of wraps, panini, rolls and sandwiches, which meet the needs of customers in both health and quality wise. At the same time, they aim to retain the traditional strengths of classic bakery products that deliver taste and enjoyment at competitive prices. This is also seen as a medium that will help in the sales of sandwiches with the growing demand for these products. The trend towards shorter lunch breaks and lighter lunches, as well as the growing number of office and retail workers in towns and cities, has also provided a boost in the present catering sector.