Delivery
Pretzel production
(click any image to enlarge)
Marietjie discussed the Enterprising Technologies scheme with her class, explained that it was centred on the green bread and helped them organise their companies. The class visited the Wishbone kitchen and one of its city stores, where they learnt about the company's processes, the types of food it produces and the typical Wishbone customer. Wishbone co-owner Andrea Gibson-Scarlett gave the class their brief – to create either a healthy snack food or an indulgent treat, and discussed how anything they developed would need to meet Wishbone's existing food standards and suit their current target market, which likes interesting, high-quality ingredients.
Back at school, Marietjie talked about the brief and suggested that as there was no reference to the green bread in it students could base their development on the bread, or not, as they wished. The class researched food trends in bread products currently on the market and, because green bread is based on rewena, also looked at the commercial availability of Māori foods in Wellington. Some students decided to concentrate on the green bread, while others developed different food products.
Consultant food technologist Carol Pound worked with the four Enterprising Technologies schools and visited Wellington High several times, discussing key milestones, products, concepts and themes with the students.
Everyone trialled concept recipes, in which they practised making a range of foods such as focaccia bread or marshmallows, experimenting, for example, with bread types and flavourings, or different flavours and textures in sweet foods. Students then chose a product to work on, and developed their own concepts. Kai Hauora members focussed on a variety of products, including chocolate, rocky-road brownie, turkish delight, pretzels, biscotti and chocolate-topped shortbread with chilli and cardamom, the latter inspired by the student's Indian heritage.
After developing their recipes, each student asked their focus group (a group of friends) to sample the product and comment on it, and modified the recipe accordingly.
Zoe Lloyd and Harry Warring focussed on developing products from the green rewena. Zoe developed breadsticks in a range of savoury and sweet flavours. After feedback from her focus group she decided to develop the sweet versions as biscotti – something that would fit into the Wishbone range and was suitable for mass production.
Harry made pretzels, experimenting with different ingredients, and, based on his focus group comments, adapted his recipe to include a variety of coatings, such as chocolate. After testing his prototypes for volume, shape, flavour and colour, he decided to put the dough through a pasta machine, to ensure consistency of shape.
The Enterprising Technologies administrator had organised a stand for Wellington High and Tararua College at the Wellington Food Show, held at the Westpac Stadium in May, and allocated a half-day slot for each school. This would provide an opportunity for the companies to present their products to an audience expressly at the venue because of an interest in 'gourmet' foods.
At this point Kai Hauora decided that rather than mass produce seven different products it made better business sense to focus on two – Zoe's biscotti and Harry's pretzels. Company members worked during and after school and at weekends cooking the biscotti and pretzels for the show. They received positive comments from those who stopped to talk to them and taste the samples and the customer survey responses gave helpful feedback on how they could further develop the products.
Based on these suggestions, Harry modified his product and created pretzels covered in apricot, chocolate and flax seed. Zoe added fig and walnut biscotti to the cranberry and aniseed version she had already developed, and dipped them in chocolate. During this time the other Kai Hauora members were continuing development of their individual products, work which they presented for NCEA Food Technology assessment as distinct from their role in the company and Enterprise Studies assessment.
All the Kai Hauora members researched factors involved in mass production of food stuffs – HACCP, legislation on food standards and costing of each product. Zoe and Harry did shelf-life testing on the pretzels and biscotti, checking how well the products would last in terms of taste and health and how long the green biscotti would retain its colour.
Shelf-life tests
Packaging, an important component for a gourmet product, had to fit the Wishbone 'look'. The company decided to wrap the biscotti and pretzels in clear plastic, to match the Wishbone food presented in see-through containers. One company member with skills in design made up the business cards, labels and stickers based on a kiwifruit motif. The group used FoodWorks software to work out the nutritional make-up of their products for the nutrition information panel.
After modifying their products, Kai Hauora presented them to Wishbone and YES. They were pleased that Wishbone liked the recipes and had only one recommendation - that cost is a lower priority for their line of food so they prefer better quality ingredients. The students took this advice, investigated alternative 'quality' ingredients, and replaced some of the ingredients chosen on price, such as the chocolate, with a product that tasted better.
The company also surveyed some Wishbone customers, to gauge public reaction to their adjusted recipes, and got a positive response from people tasting their food. They then went into bulk production of pretzels and biscotti for the YES trade fair at Porirua Mall, at which they made $200 selling their products to local shoppers. They had also sold some items to teachers and students at school but, due to the time commitment in producing stock for the trade fair, did not follow up on this market.
The class had discussed intellectual property (IP) issues during the year and this was reflected in the contract Kai Hauora signed with Wishbone, which asserted Harry and Zoe's rights to the IP on their products, and allowed Wishbone the option of purchasing the concepts at any time until the end of the year.
