Company Background

 Kerbside Gourmet, known more affectionately as “Kerby”, made its debut on the streets of Singapore in 2013. This environmentally friendly Toyota Hino hybrid truck is also Asia’s first social enterprise gourmet food truck – a vision brought to life by its founder, Luan.  With its strong social outlook, Kerby operates on a BAMGAM (Buy A Meal, Give A Meal) basis through partnerships with other volunteer welfare organizations.

Starting with a simple love for fresh produce and wholesome food, now, Kerbside keeps its customers happy through its 3-prong activation strategy:

• Brand Activation – where clients can use the truck to promote a brand, message or cause
• Onsite Catering – where Kerby serves food at a client’s choice of location with a customized menu) and
• Street Vending – where Kerby serves its gourmet food truck menu at concerts and events around Singapore

Moreover, being nomadic, Kerby does not have a fixed location or operating hours – leaving its fans to search for its whereabouts through the Kerbside Gourmet Twitter page.

Competitors

As one of the first movers in the mobile food industry in Singapore, Kerbside Gourmet only has two competitors – the Travelling C.O.W and the Coffee Bandits. However, with the Coffee Bandits focusing on coffee, and the Travelling C.O.W serving comfort food rather than gourmet food, we believe that Kerby does not have any direct competitors in the same market space.

Target Audience

While Kerby inculcates an all inclusive and wholesome culture, it aims to reach out to discerning individuals who seek an alternative, sublime dining experience. Being a first mover in the mobile food industry in Singapore, Kerby could potentially capture a large portion of the consumer market by capitalizing on its unique nomadic traits in an otherwise saturated F&B industry.

Our Motivations

1. Novelty
   The mobile food industry has witnessed great success in countries like the USA and Canada, and has seen significant growth over the past decade.
   However, the mobile food industry is still a relatively uncharted and undeveloped industry in Singapore due to the beauretic red tape and high costs involved. As Kerbside Gourmet is the first mover in the Singapore mobile food industry, we are excited to work on this relatively new and intriguing food concept in Singapore.

2. Relevance
   Due to the nomadic nature of the food truck business, they are heavily reliant on word-of-mouth and social media in order to establish relationships with its consumers. We want to analyse the importance of social media, and ways to maximize the effectiveness of these social media channels, to drive communication between Kerbside Gourmet and its potential consumers.

3. Growth Potential
   Kerby has already seen interest and excitement amongst Singaporeans, especially those who actively seek out new eating experiences. This, coupled with the success of food trucks in other national markets, gives us confidence that Kerbside Gourmet can achieve great success with the right social media strategy. If it is able to maximize the use of its social media channels, we believe that Kerby will not only grow its loyal fan base, but it could even kick start the growth of the mobile food industry in Singapore.

Current Marketing Strategies

Kerby is currently active on its Twitter (97 Followers), Facebook (7.6K Likers) and Instagram (997 Followers) social media pages, and has an updated website. It relies mainly on its Facebook and Twitter pages to communicate its whereabouts to potential consumers. However, given its relatively small following on its social media pages, we foresee the possibility of significant growth on these platforms through the implementation of new social media engagement activities.

Main Project Goal

Our main objective is to foster stronger customer relationships between Kerby and its consumers. We intend to do so through the implementation of new initiatives on its social media pages. The implementation of these initiatives will foster a heightened sense of loyalty amongst existing consumers, and attract new consumers to Kerby’s unique business proposition. We believe that strengthening customer relationships will ultimately lead to Kerby establishing a dominant market position with top-of-mind awareness in the mobile food industry.

Research Question

Given our objectives for this project, we have come up with the following research question: “How can Kerbside Gourmet leverage on social media to build strong customer relationships in the mobile food industry”

Method of Research

We aim to gather more data on customer expectations from a food truck in Singapore, their general sentiments on the mobile food industry, and their willingness or interest to participate in various social media led initiatives, to be better equipped to design our strategy for Kerby.

The collection of this research will be done through:

1. Primary Research
   – Focus Groups
   – In-depth Interviews
   – Online Surveys

2. Secondary Research
   – Case Studies
   – Online Research

We have chosen to utilize primary research to better understand the attitudes and behavior potential consumers towards the mobile food industry and secondary research to understand the industry in more established markets and understand how we can emulate the success of food trucks in other markets in Singapore.

Conclusion

In conclusion, our proposed strategies will help Kerbside Gourmet establish relationships with their customers and turn them into loyal customers and brand advocates. In addition, this project will also allow us to examine the effects social media has on the consumption choices of Singaporeans and explore the effectiveness of social media as a key tool for the growth of Singapore’s first food truck business. We hope that Kerbside Gourmet will be able to change the landscape of the food industry and the use of social media as it rises in the ranks to become a household name in Singapore.