MEMORANDUM REVISE Yuange Li

Yuange LiProposal Memo Assignment 1 Oct. 22, 2014

MEMORANDUM

To: David Thompson, the president of the Potato

Association of America (PPA)

From: Bryon Reed, a potato farmer in Idaho

Date: October 22, 2014

Subject: Proposal to bring back the popularity of

potatoes

Proposal

Americans consume less fresh potatoes nowadays than

before because they are too busy to spend time cooking.

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Merging with food producers to create frozen potato

entrées based on Asian menu could help increasing the

sales of potatoes.

According to a report from WSJ, spending less time to

cook is one of the reasons why Americans decrease the

consumption of potatoes. Because it takes time to make

classic potato dishes(peeling, washing and chopping),

people who used to cook potatoes would not choose this

ingredient facing increasingly busy work. For the sake of

convenience and health, we could cooperate with major

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frozen food producers to create some nutrient frozen

potato entrées based on Asian menu. On the one hand,

microwaving the cooked food could save a lot of cooking

time for office worker who love potato cuisine but

without time to make it; on the other hand, potatoes

dealt with Asian method(such as stewing with other

materials and simple stir-frying)would be more nutrient

and delicious than that cooked through hashing and

frying. Thus, we could make the potatoes popular again

through supplying convenience and health.

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Implementing the Proposal

1. Research the frozen food industry

Find some major frozen food producers, such us ASK

Foods, lnc. and ConAgra Foods.

Research their menu to find whether they have

potato products, how many kinds of potato products

they have and what kind of cooking methods--

American, Mexican or Asian--they use.

We would cooperate with companies which tend to use

potatoes as ingredient but have not develop Asian

cooking method to create new dishes.

After the negotiation, we could help them either

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test the entrée recipe made of fresh potatoes

NOTE: To make sure the collaboration with these

companies, we could consider giving some discounts in

selling fresh potatoes to them.

2. Research the consumers

Make a questionnaire survey about the consumers’

preference to potatoes. Do

they love eating potatoes? If they don’t like this

ingredients, what is the reason? If they like it,

what kind of Asian cuisine made of potatoes they

would like to try?

As for the question about what kind of Asian potato

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cuisine they would like to try, we could supply some

choices for the customers. Each choice should

include the picture, simple illustration and

calories amount. Because I have friends come from

Asia, they could give some suggestions about what

are the popular potato dishes in Asia. The simple

examples are as following.

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Obstacles: Cooperation

Cooperation with frozen products manufactures:

If the company does not have the plan to produce potato

Asian food, how to persuade them to develop this branch.

The first method is to certify that the sales revenue

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could excess the developing cost, thus the corporation

would built connection with us.

Resources and Budget

The expenses include two parts. One is for negotiating

with the food producers, the other is for researching the

customers. To persuade the food producers to create new

entrées, we need to do some fundamental work in analyzing

the cost and benefit of the company if they decide to

adopt our suggestion. To get valuable information from

customers, we should prepare the questionnaires and

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settle them. The overall time will be 3 weeks.

Conclusion

The decrease of the sales of the fresh potatoes is an

issue we cannot ignore. Basing on the analysis of the

reason why the sales decrease, we could consider

increasing our sales by supplying convenience and health.

Collaborating with the frozen products manufactures is

the way to improve convenience, and applying Asian food

is the way to confirm the health and delicacy. My entire

proposal is based on the fact that potatoes are nutrient

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food and with the introduction of the new menu these

green ingredients could be popular again.

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Documents

MEMORANDUM REVISE Yuange Li