Difficult Choices

Our group chose the countries for our project based on group discussion and the prompt we were given. The prompt narrowed the list of countries we could pick from down to three continents; Asia, Europe, and South America. During discussion, we talked about which countries cuisine we wanted to try and ultimately decided on China, Italy, and Chile. This decision was also based on which recipes we believed could be successful and the amount of recipes we could find online.

These are the fifteen chicken recipes we decided to try: from China we chose: Chow Main, which is stir fried noodles with chicken; spring rolls, which are thin pastry shells stuffed with chicken and vegetables; wanton, which is a type of dumpling; kau rou, which is grilled or fried meat on a stick; and Chinese chicken and gravy.

For Italy we chose: Chicken parmesan; spaghetti with chicken meatballs; lasagna; chicken bruschetta, which is a type of pizza; and chicken cheese sticks, which is a fried ground chicken shell with mozzarella cheese in the center.

For Chile we chose: Chicken chile verde, which is a spicy chicken stew with avacodo and sour cream; stuffed breast with onion, carrots, and peas; cazuela de ave, which is a type of chicken soup; stuffed potatoes with chicken; and charquican, which is a type of stew with chicken, potatoes, pumpkin, and onion topped with a fried egg.

We decided on these dishes because of how popular they appeared to be, common ingredients that are easily found at a grocery store, and how tasty they looked. We also picked these dished because they are unique and could be served in a family setting around the world.

We chose to compare our first dish, the Chilean stuffed breast to similar dishes that we could find at Walmart. There were a couple of these types of products but ours stood out from the rest for two reasons. The first is that these products were all produced by the same company Barber Foods. The second is that the other dishes included: breaded chicken breast stuffed with broccoli and cheese; breaded chicken breast stuffed with a loaded baked potato mixture; and breaded chicken breast stuffed with cordon bleu. In contrast our product contains only vegetables within the breast, there is no added cheese or extra meats, and the breast is seasoned in spices, not a breading. These two characteristics, no added meat, cheese, or breading, gives our Chilean stuffed breast dish a health factor that the others seem to lack.

The consumers we are targeting vary depending on which of the recipes we are discussing. For the Chilean Stuffed breast dish, we are targeting single people and those who have limited time they can devote to cooking. Because this product can be pre-prepared and frozen, it allows for greater convenience. For the Chicken Cheese Sticks we are targeting those consumers who love comfort food but don’t love the time it takes to prepare these tasty dishes. We are also targeting the fast food industry. This product can also be frozen, which increases convenience, as well as being able to be placed under a heat lamp for extended periods allowing for the product to be sold at fast food restaurants or gas stations. For the Chinese Chicken and Gravy we are targeting families and larger groups of people because this product can be sold with the chicken and gravy packaged together in a tray pack or box.