The Greek company Tasty Foods, a member of PepsiCo International, has been a leader on the Greek market in core potato chips category with its worldwide brand Lay’s. However, due to competitive pressures, emerging trends, negative consumer perceptions and worsening market conditions, potato chips per capita (PCC) consumption has remained unchanged relative to other European countries. Therefore, the company set long-term objectives in order to increase PPC consumption. One of the ideas, based on the UK success story, was to explore a new occasion joint consumption of potato chips and sandwich. The team has launched a survey research project, developing it through two phases the quantitative one, with the questionnaire prepared, distributed and analyzed, and the qualitative one, with two focus groups organized and assessed. The findings have shown that the sandwich and chips occasion does exist but not in a wide consumers’ base; however, it might be further explored provided that some important issues are tackled such as the gradual change of negative consumers perceptions towards the understanding that PC are made of natural potatoes. Accordingly, the MBA team proposed a specific marketing mix strategy towards achieving these objectives.
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