Hindustan foods a leading manufacturer of food products, recorded sales of Rs 445.6 crores and a net income of Rs 54.57 crores in 2003. The company manufactured fruitcakes, cookies, biscuits, confectioneries and a variety of other food products including baby foods. The domestic confectionery market was loosely divided into seven categories-hard boiled candies, toffees, éclairs, chewing gum, bubble gum, mints, and lozenges. Hard boiled candies occupied the largest share of this market. Hindustan foods did not have a presence in this segment. It manufactured and marketed toffees as tasty bite toffees while in the chewing and bubble gum segment it had a significant presence with its Fresh mint brand.
Hindustan foods planned to enter the hard boiled fruit candy segment under its Tasty bite brand. The objective was to gain significant presence and market share in a segment that was rapidly growing. The company wanted to test three new flavors for the proposed candy, strawberry, apricot, and pine apple. Hindustan foods also wanted to measure the impact of three different retail prices-50 paise, 75 paise and 100 paise for three flavors. The company selected nine geographically separated stores, as the test stores for the new flavors and different price points. These stores were similar with respect to Hindustan foods confectionery sales and were located in neighborhoods that had similar demographic characteristics. Because each of the three flavors was to be tested at each price, a total of nine different flavors-price combinations had to be tested. Hindustan foods arranged for the delivery of the three new flavors across the stores. At the end of four weeks, the company collected the unsold candy cases. It determined the number of cases sold for each price. With the data so determined, Hindustan foods wanted to know if the differences in sales was due to the difference in flavors and what affect the different prices had no sales.