Background of Panda Express

1 Background of Panda Express Panda Express is a restaurant that deals with fast food serving American Chinese cuisine. It is a child company of the famous Panda Restaurant Group that was founded by Andrew Cheng, his father, chef Ming Tsai Cherng and Peggy Cherng launched in the United States in 1973. It was Glendale Galleria who birthed the idea of fast food restaurant in Cherng’s mind thereby causing him to launch the Panda Express in October 1983. The second branch of Panda Express was launched in the second year at Westside Pavilion in 1985. From then, Panda has gradually expanded across the United States of America. The first Chinese – American dish was the orange chicken, which was developed in 1987 by chef Andy in Hawaii. Initially, this restaurant was located only in food courts within shopping malls. The first stand-alone branch of Panda was launched in 1997 in Hesperia, California (Liu 10). The major branches are found in Mexico City, Guatemala City, Dubai (2014) and South Korea 92014). Products/ service of a blend of both Panda Express deals in gourmet Chinese foods made out of fresh ingredients only. They offer full package meals, from cheap food to larger portions as well as good services rendered to the customers. The orange chicken is the most famous of all its food. Their foods are calorie standard for each serving. They contain less than 245 calories. These foods are like the Kung Pao Chicken, Broccoli Beef, the Shanghai Agnus Steak, Beijing Beef, Chicken Breast, and Honey Walnut Shrimp (Liu and Lianlian 34). They are served in bowls alongside freshly chopped vegetables such as red bell peppers, yellow onions, and sugar snap peas to meet dinner and lunch perfections. New dishes introduced recently are the Wok-Seared Steak and Shrimp. Panda Express experienced chef crafts a remarkably complete and quality American dishes. Its dishes are made from premium ingredients linked to Steak House Entrees as well as juicy Angus Top Sirloin Steak (Panda Express). 2 Table 1 The table below shows Panda Express Nutrition Facts ) g m ( M ) ) l g E g ) o ( g T r t ) m ( I ( e s a g t f ( e n s m i U i s r e r u e l N n i a t o o l a g t d o E a h r a r o u M C F T C S S P SIDE Chow main 510 20 0 0 860 9 13 Chow Fun 410 9 0 0 1110 6 9 Fried rice 520 16 0 120 850 4 11 Supper Greens 90 25 0 260 0 4 6 VEGETABLES Eggplant tofu 340 24 0 0 520 17 7 CHICKEN Black pepper 280 19 0 55 1130 7 13 chicken Asian chicken 340 13 0 195 630 10 41 Orange chicken 490 23 0 80 820 19 25 Potato chicken 190 10 0 30 680 4 8 Product Assortment The product assortment is the collection of both goods and services provided to the consumers by a given company or business entity. Panda Express has established a more perfect combination of dishes to suite their customer’s needs. “Choosing the right combination of dishes to serve the customer was never an easy task.” Chef Jimmy Wang said. The many food varieties served at Panda made it even harder to come up with a combination that electrified their customer. A combination like orange chicken served with fried rice was the best combinations made. Quite a number of customers went for Grilled Teriyaki Chicken 3 combined with Steamed rice with super greens. As customers flowed in and out of the restaurant, new combinations such as Broccoli Beef with brown steamed rice and string bean chicken breast among others attracted a good number of customers (Liu & Jang 22). Panda Express serves complimentary dishes such as mixed vegetables, white steamed rice, black pepper among others, and appetizers such as egg roll, cream cheese Rangoon and crispy shrimps to satisfy their customer's appetites. The restaurant is also pocket-friendly since the dishes are highly affordable. Line Extensions Line extension occurs when a company introduces extra commodities in a similar product category within similar brand name. With the changing customer demand and appetites, Figure 1 Panda Express Major Combinations Panda express had to ensure the durability of its heritage. Chef Wang came up with the wok Fired shrimp, which entailed more better ingredients mixed together to bring out magic no customer could reset (Liu & Jang 338). According to Panda Express, Chef Jimmy recommended these entrees combined with steamed rice and supper greens. The kung Pao Chicken, Beijing Beef, Grilled Teiyaki Chicken were introduced in the line of chicken dishes served in the restaurant. Brand Extensions The famous orange chicken was the main chicken dish served in Panda Express restaurant for a long period of time. However, the kitchen felt the need to introduce other chicken variety initially under the orange chicken. The string bean chicken and the sweet fire chicken were served for some time as the original orange chicken until they gained popularity. 4 Product Mix Decision Product mix entails the full range of the restaurant products offered to the customers. This decision enables the restaurant to compete well in the open market. Even though Panda Express has no deep product variety, the consistency, and length of their dishes balance their market position. Being a dinner and lunch restaurant, Panda Express is limited to serving strictly fast dishes. However, these dishes have a lengthy complimentary dish that the restaurant uses to attract its customers(Liu et al. 382). The ideas of side dishes and appetizers made the dishes worth taking. Branding Strategies In order to obtain a strong market value and brand equity, Panda Express pushed market borders through a series of innovations in 2014. Dave Wallinga said the innovations were aimed at maintaining the relevance of the restaurant and its brands across the globe. Panda Express come up with a brand-new logo with a different face from the old one. It was brighter and had wider letters. Panda also came up with a test kitchen concept in Pasadena in 2014 aimed at trying out new menus (Liu et al. 77). The Panda Anda You initiative tells the story of Panda Express in connection to family, and food style served in the restaurant. Brand Quality of Product Given the different brand of dishes served within the restaurant, Panda Express chef Jimmy influence the quality of dishes for the better. The orange chicken brand won a five-star rating by the customer. According to a blog by trip advisor Malaysia, Shanghai Angus steak, Beijing beef, and black pepper chicken are a few brands of dishes that received quality assurance from the customers. 5 Product Life Cycle (PLC) In the past years of growth, Panda Express had challenges in establishing its products. However, with its global growth, the dishes served have made it to the maturity stage. Despite this, a rating by Jeff Miller left placed the black pepper chicken at the growth stage. Nature of services Panda Express offers a variety of customer friendly services. The online ordering service and the delivery group who charge varying prices with regard to customer location. Food services are non-heterogenous in the restaurant. The website and mobile application ensure delivery of orders to the customers. Customer services are fixed regardless of the status of an individual hence indiscriminative services (foodpnada.com). Price Pricing objectives and policy In order to face the challenge of competition, Panda Express lowered the prices of its dishes to fit the customers. Original orange chicken goes for as little as $6.0. This objective equally aimed at increasing sale volumes for the restaurant hence increasing the returns and profits. This pricing policy has helped the restaurant to maintain its customers. Below is a sample of panda pricing. Figure 2 Panda pricing 6 Internal/ external factors affecting prices Since Panda Express kitchen uses fresh ingredients and vegetables that demand continuous supply, the prices of dishes tend to fluctuate with regard to the availability of the products. Black pepper is a seasonal ingredient that keeps altering the price of black pepper chicken and other meals (Susanto and Patricia 48). The yellow onion might absent the market for some time, and since it served as a complimentary dish with Beijing beef, it might change the price of the dish to meet its purchase cost. Cost-Based Pricing Panda Express constantly reduce cost of its products. Since most of its products are produced and sold within the restaurant, prices tend to be lower except for the distribution in cases where a customer is located far. Value-Based Pricing Panda Express does not engage mostly in value-based pricing since its dishes are solid foods that take on stable prices that must be prices based on production and distributions. However, the soft drinks sold here have no value – based prices. The fountain drink goes for as little as $1.5 while the juice is at $1.9. Market – skimming pricing Panda Express dishes do not need market skimming pricing since the dishes are aimed at serving the customers of all status throughout the seasons. The pricing of new products is entirely done using cost-based pricing. Market – penetration pricing The low prices in Panda Express are not for market penetration. Panda does not set low prices to eliminate competition but rather to dispose of their dishes to all customers affordably. 7 Discounts, promotions, and coupons Panda allows discounts of up to $4 for family feast ordered online.

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