Gifted and Talented Project at Ginsters of Cornwall

The report below is written by Rachel Buxton and Katherine Kneebone from year 10.

In November 2009 some students from year 10 were selected as gifted and talented to take part in a project for local business Ginsters of Cornwall.

We went to Ginsters for a tour of the factory to see how everything worked and the different processes involved in making the Ginsters products.  First, we were shown a presentation all about Ginsters and what our task was.  The task was to create a new product for Ginsters using ingredients and machines already used by them as to spend the least amount of money on production therefore keeping the revenue high, then we would have to present our idea to lots of important people from Ginsters, and the group with the best presentation would win a ‘mystery prize'.

The presentation had to include: the idea and information about the new product, the production used for it, where the ingredients would come from (this was important to keep the ‘local produce' image of Ginsters) and an advertising campaign.

Before the tour, we had to put on hairnets, coats, gloves and shoe covers to make sure the production rooms were kept hygienic.  After we were all hygienic, we were shown the rooms where all the different foods were prepared for the making of the final product, we were all very surprised at the amount of food used every day and that it all came from local farms.  Then we were shown the rooms where all the ingredients were put together and cooked before being made into pasties and slices.  The final room was where the pastry was made and everything was put together and cooked in huge ovens.

After the tour we were taken back into the presentation room and were put into groups and told to pick managing directors who would lead their group and organise meetings, we also thought of initial ideas for our product and started thinking about target markets.

In our groups of five, we were asked to produce an original product of our choice, and present it to a panel of the managers of each of their individual areas at Ginsters.  Once assigned the task, our team got together and discussed many different ideas, such as salads, pasta meals, both sweet and savoury products, and in the end we came to the conclusion that the product that we wanted to produce was ‘Mini Pasty Bites.'  These bites were inspired by the original Cornish pasty, we felt that both their name and content would fit in brilliantly with the target audience and purpose at Ginsters, this is because both of the products are aimed towards people o the go, which need a quick and easy meal.

The aim of our product was to satisfy and fill the customer up, whilst at the same time making it easy and not too messy for the consumer. Our pasty bites were bite size spheres, so that anyone who was eating them would be able to slip them in their mouths quickly and easily without any mess.

Once we had decided on our product, as a group we chose to meet every Thursday night after school from 3pm until 4:30pm. We placed ourselves in an English room so had the facilities of both a computer and printer which were very helpful. In our team, we were all assigned different jobs, and subjects that we were to be in charge of.  For example: Ellie was in charge of packaging design and production, Katherine was the team leader so was in charge of the team, Gemma worked on advertising, Jasmine on Audience and I (Rachel) worked on the ingredients and price of the finished product.

We produced a questionnaire which was very helpful, as we were able to ask other people opinions about the food at Ginsters and what they thought about our new product idea. This gave us a broader look at our plans, and we were then able to edit the bites to the customer's satisfaction.

We all enjoyed producing our product very much, it opened our eyes into what the world of business and production is like.

Throughout the few weeks that we had as a team we became much closer.  Making and producing our presentation was very enjoyable. It took most of us out of our comfort zones and was quite a challenge, but in the end all of our work payed off, and we all thoroughly enjoyed working together as a team, and felt privileged to have been picked out of our year group to represent the school in this task.

Visit Ginsters of Cornwall website...