A Market Research on Introducing Drinking Straw Made of Dried Mango Leaves in the Province of Pampanga

Abstract

Drinking straws have been almost a staple commodity and a hygiene tool to customers buying drinks and beverages from expensive iced coffee sold in coffee shops down to bottled soft drinks sold in retail stores. As for the continuous usage of plastic drinking straws, so is the continuous generation of solid waste. Furthermore, petroleum is needed for the production of plastic drinking straws, hence another cause of air pollution. The paper tackles the possibility of introducing in the market, a drinking straw made of dried mango leaves. Dried Mango leaves are another solid waste being discarded on a regular basis in many places in the Philippines. Thus, lessening the combustion of the said leaves would decrease the worsening greenhouse effect. To ensure the sustainability of the utilization of this innovative product, a market study is conducted. The different micro, small and medium enterprises where consumers buy drinking straws in the province of Pampanga were surveyed as target market. A demand-supply gap analysis is presented which in the end, leads to the conclusion of the projected number of unsatisfied customers from existing consumers of drinking straw made of plastic.