Market innovation

A bakery industry snapshot from 2011 by the Center for Economic Vitality indicates that the U.S. baking industry was comprised of commercial and retail baking operations that combined to generate $33 billion in annual revenues. Biscuits continue to experience a higher current value sales growth. This is largely due to consumers trading up to more expensive products and consumers preferring smaller pack sizes, which helps contribute to a higher value sales growth. Savory crackers and biscuits experienced the highest value sales growth, but as consumers become increasingly health conscious, more have become inclined towards savory crackers and biscuits such as wheatmeal biscuits as compared to sweet biscuits. Within sweet biscuits, filled biscuits registered the highest current value sales.

In order to survive in the ever-changing marketplace, both bakery wholesalers and retailers must adapt to challenges faced by the industry. This might mean coping with widely fluctuating food and fuel prices by using futures products to hedge against losses, or dealing with a saturated and consolidating market where large supermarkets are producing in-house products, increasing competition. Small bakeries, unless they automate or provide some other distinct value to their customers, may find that they cannot compete with larger bakeries and their economies of scale. In some cases, the latter buy out the former, as when Flowers Foods acquired Lepage Bakeries in 2012. Through 2016, the number of companies in the U.S. bread sector is predicted to shrink by 2.3 percent.

The bakery is a stable market around the world, which as been consistently giving revenues. By only looking at the industry in Singapore, it has a SGD 193 millions in revenue in 2012.(Orissa International,2013) Judging from the industrial size and demand, there is an opportunity for a better innovation that benefit the industry. This can increase the production efficiency and thereby giving competitive edges to the companies.

BakerBot is hereby introduced as a system that manufactures cookies autonomously.

Reflection of the writing and editing process

During this English course, I believe I have learnt many important skills in reading and writing English essays. For instance, I have revised English grammar with a better understanding. I have also learnt to analyze an essay prompt and summaries with general ideas in an essay. Moreover, I was taught to recognize features of academic writing and write in such form.

In terms of content, language and structure of academic writing, I believe I have improved on a few aspects. I was more aware of the tenses used while writing. It is also important to think critically to provide concise information and be aware of the main topic so that the topic sentence and main ideas is aligned as one.

In the next few weeks, I wish to know more about the good methodologies and habits of learning to read and write English essays, and the recommended learning sources besides nus library. I wish to continue my English learning in the future for a long time, therefore I think this is very important to me.  

By looking at the errors I have made in the previous essays, I think I have to improve the ability to fully understand passages. I think that it is crucial to obtain all the required information before critically answering to the questions. 

I have made all changes state in the comment. I was asked to rate my grade for content, organization and language.However , I am unsure about how accurate I was and comment as I cannot find any feedback of my grading.

In my perspective, audio and written feedback is a good way for me to correct my mistakes, as it has detailed explanations and guidance. I am sure that it would help if I had such comprehensive feedback in my other courses.

Why is writing in English important to me?

It is important for me to understand the information  available to me. To me, being able to communicate and deliver messages to other people is vital. Although English is neither my first nor second language, it is the common language in Singapore.  Moreover, it is the most common spoken language in the world. There are many huge benefits if I have good English communication skills.

Firstly, English is one of the most common languages which professionals use in Singapore. I believe that it would be easier for me to find a job which requires communication skills. In addition, the career path could be smoother as there would be lesser possibilities of causing conflicts due to the lack of English proficiency.  For instance, communicating with people from other countries may be a routine task for company managers.

Secondly, some valuable knowledge could only be found in English texts. With the good ability to understand the language, I could further explore into many different English media. This allows me to study  from research reports and articles related to engineering, finance and sports. For instance, I could learn accounting skills from English writings which are not available in other languages.

All in all, I think that learning English is essential to me. By learning good English, I could avoid many unnecessary obstacles and apply for  jobs which emphasis in English communication skills. In addition, I can learn from a variety of English texts. Furthermore, it would be satisfying for me to communicate with people from different counties. Therefore, English is a language which I would love to spend time to learn and practice.