Thinking Out Loud: Processors Meet Functional Food Challenges
Last Fall, Prepared Foods conducted its annual survey on current trends and growth opportunities for functional foods, functional beverages and dietary supplements.
Toward the end of 2012, Prepared Foods approached 8,801 active, qualified PF subscribers who gave their job title as R&D, QA/QC, Marketing, Sales, General Management/Administration or Purchasing-related. A systematic, random sample from the domestic circulation (on an Nth name basis) was used. Total respondents numbered 169. The survey was conducted via the Web. Upon completion of the fieldwork, the results were tabulated using SPSS statistical software package. The data produced were presented in graphical and tabular format with the number of respondents who answered that particular question. The number may change throughout the report, since some respondents skipped or incorrectly answered a question. Some questions in the survey were “open-ended,” requiring a text response. Other than minor editing for typos, grammar and readability, these responses have been presented as entered.
When asked to describe their title, 43% of respondents claimed a spot in the Research & Development (president/VP of R&D, food tech, chemist, scientist, chef, project manager, lab tech, etc.) category. QA/QC (quality assurance manager, quality-control manager, QA/QC personnel, etc.) landed 23%, and 22% chose General Management & Administration (president, owner, partner, vice president, general manager, manager and assistant manager, etc.). The remaining title categories claimed included: 4% each as Marketing (category manager, brand manager, product manager, marketing director, marketing manager, etc.) or “other;” and 2% each as Sales (VP of sales, director of sales, sales manager, etc.) or Purchasing (purchasing director/supervisor, purchasing agent, buyer, etc.). Other mentions included: Regulatory (three individuals); Engineer (two individuals), and one respondent whose listed job is “Forecasting.”