1. By: Tim, Tiffany, and Brooke

2.  Our goal was to find the ultimate baked cheese cracker. It had to be great in three categories to take the top spot. Those categories were: price per ounce, calories per piece, and lastly, taste. We constrained our cracker choices to those that can be found at the Kroger on University in Denton. The crackers we assembled were:  Executive Summary: The overall best choice was the Kroger Cheese Bits on our weighted scale. It was followed by Goldfish, then Cheez-it, and in last place was Annie’s Cheddar Squares. Annie’s Cheddar SquaresCheez-ItKroger Cheese BitsGoldfish

3.  To ascertain our data for the taste test we put each brand of cracker in an unmarked cup and had each participant, 25 total, taste each and rank them from 1 to 4. 4 being the best, 1 being the worst. There could be no ties.  To determine which cracker was the most cost effective we took the total cost of each box and divided by the number of ounces in the box. This gave us the price per ounce.

4.  To gather the relative Calorie information we looked at the nutritional facts and divided the number of calories per serving by the number of crackers per serving. This gave us the number of calories per cracker.  Our last bit of data gathering was finding out how to calculate our weighted average. We asked each participant what is most important when purchasing a box of crackers: taste, cost, or calories. We totaled each choice and divided by 25 (the number of participants) to determine the weight of each criteria.

5.  The results of the taste test were as follows:  From this table you can see that Cheez-It won the taste test and Annie’s came in last place, well behind the others. Annie’s Cheddar Squares Kroger Cheese Bits GoldfishCheez-It Total Points Scored 3372 73 # of participants 25 Total points scored/25 (# of participants) 1.322.88 2.92

6.  The results for the cost were as follows:  Kroger’s Cheese bits are the most cost effective followed by Cheez-It, Goldfish and in last place Annie’s Cheddar Squares. The higher number of points awarded the more cost effective the crackers were. Annie’s Cheddar Squares Kroger Cheese Bits GoldfishCheez-It Cost ($) 3.592.19 3.11 Ounces (oz) 7.5166.613.7 Cost/Ounce ($/oz).47.14.33.22 Points Awarded 1423

7.  The results for calories were as follows:  Goldfish contain the least calories, and Kroger Cheese Bits were second. Annie’s and Cheez-It tied for the most calories per piece and were each given last place points of 1. Annie’s Cheddar Squares Kroger Cheese Bits GoldfishCheez-It Calories per serving 150 140150 Pieces per serving 27315527 Calories/piece 5.554.842.545.55 Points Awarded 1341

8.  Weighted Average Calculation: TastePriceCalories # of participants that selected criteria: 1474 # of participants 25 Weighted Average % 56%28%16%

9.  The results for computing the weighted average and winner: Annie’s Cheddar Squares Kroger Cheese Bits GoldfishCheez-It Points from Taste * Weighted Average 1.32*.58=.7392 2.88*.58= 1.6128 2.92*.58= 1.6352 Points from Price * Weighted Average 1*.28=.284*.28= 1.122*.28=.563*.28=.84 Points from Calories * Weighted Average 1*.16=.163*.16=.484*.16=.641*.16=.16 Total Points (Sum of each column) 1.17923.21282.63522.8128

10.  On the previous slide you can see the final results that Kroger’s Cheese Bits are the best choice based on our criteria. Goldfish came in second place, Cheez-It was third and Annie’s Cheddar Squares were last, well behind all of the other choices.  If taste is your main deciding factor Cheez-It was the top choice by a very narrow margin. They were Followed extremely closely by Goldfish and Kroger’s Cheese Bits.  Annie’s Cheddar Squares did not place well in any of our three criteria. Annie’s received the lowest points possible for each of them.  Recommendation: We recommend Kroger’s Cheese Bits, as they are cost effective, and taste great.