Melbourne’s North Food Group partner and local food manufacturer Marisa’s Kitchen has been operating as a pre-packaged food business since 2005, providing a selection of gourmet products and meals across Australia.
Although already catering to over 100,00 customers, Marisa’s Kitchen wanted to increase its digital presence and social footprint to ensure that new and existing customers can engage directly with Marisa’s Kitchen to get recipes, tips and ideas for how to use their delicious range of hand-made soups, sauces and dips.
To help with this, Marisa’s Kitchen engaged the services of the North and West Melbourne Data Analytics Hub, who were able to utilise the skills of students completing a business analytics major in the Bachelor of Information Technology at Melbourne Polytechnic.
The students were able to develop a proof-of-concept for a ‘Recipe of the Day App’ that catered for dietary requirements, with recipes for different times of the day as well as different events such as dinner parties and barbeques.
Although it was challenging to incorporate Marisa’s Kitchens existing online store into the proof-of-concept, the work of the Data Analytics Hub and the students from Melbourne Polytechnic has been highly valuable.
“We have a marketing campaign starting shortly and a lot of the ideas the students developed through the app will be used in this. Special options for celiac, vegetarian and low sodium recipes came up through developing the app which we’re going to take out and use in different aspects of the business” said Damian Pannunzio, Accounts & Operations Manager at Marisa’s Kitchen.
“Having a group of younger students on board who were really keen and willing to get this app going and knew how to promote a business on Facebook and Instagram was really beneficial. Being able to share a recipe of the day to our Instagram page and have someone click on it, go straight to the app and be prompted to the different dietary needs was really exciting”.
Dr Sitalakshmi Venkatraman, a senior lecturer and industry coordinator for the Bachelor of Information Technology at Melbourne Polytechnic, remembers the project with Marisa’s Kitchen fondly, despite some initial challenges in communication between the students and the business.
“The students could develop a proof of concept using Adobe XD without having to program it, showing how the screens will look like and how the journey will be for a customer using the app. They [Marisa’s Kitchen] were very happy with it and the students were very motivated with the project” Dr Venkatraman said.
The North and West Melbourne Data Analytics Hub has been highly valuable to both Marisa’s Kitchen and the students involved in the project. “It’s a win-win for everyone” explains Dr Venkatraman.
As data is becoming increasingly important and valuable to all areas of small, medium and large enterprises, if you believe data analytics could benefit your business, please contact James Wallace of the North and West Melbourne Data Analytics Hub at James.Wallace@latrobe.edu.au.