PROFILING INNOVATIVE AND CONSERVATIVE FOOD CONSUMERS IN SAINT PETERSBURG

Food is an important part of our life because we consume food products everyday in one way or another. This makes food business financially a big thing for the food industry and for the same reason also academic life and researchers are interested in the food business. Finnish food companies are especially interested in the food market of Saint Petersburg and Moscow because of the geographical location and business opportunities. This thesis is done for the Finnish food industry and the point of view of this thesis is a combination of a managerial and consumer point of view. The research problem is “How to adapt target group focused marketing planning paradigm to recognize the marketing potential in the target area with varying innovative level of food consumers?” This problem is being solved with three different aims. The first aim is to conduct a literature review in order to produce a comprehensive understanding of those factors that influence how consumers experience a food product and accept new ones. The second aim is to empirically analyze what are innovative and conservative food consumers in Saint Petersburg. The third aim is to give managerial suggestions for the Finnish food industry on how to make successful marketing in the Saint Petersburg’s food market. As a conclusion we can state that for innovative food consumers it is important that food does not include any artificial ingredients, is healthy and the manufacturing processes do not insult human or animal rights. For conservative food consumers important factors are familiarity, price, security and products need to be easy to prepare. In addition, consumers place emphasis especially on healthy food, recommendations made by other consumers and they also are price awareness. The networking of other Finnish companies in Saint Petersburg could help all companies to achieve better results. Still the key for success is the differentiation in marketing. The good reputation of Finnish food quality is a good opportunity and competition advantage for Finnish food companies.