DIY MARKET RESEARCH

How JUST uses SurveyMonkey Audienceto crack the plant-based food industry
JUST, a food startup offering plant-based egg alternatives ismaking moves. It’s entering new markets, cashing in on under-theradar consumer trends, and learning everything from A to Z about
its target buyer—and SurveyMonkey Audience is the insights
engine that powers it all.

SURVEY DATA

$40K

~40

3

saved on a pricing study
vs. a third-party vendor

market research surveys
run with SurveyMonkey
Audience annuallyinternational studies
launched: UK, India,
and China

THE CHALLENGE

Juggling an end-to-end insights program
Daniel Scharff is the head of insights and analytics at JUST, which means his company
and their partners rely on him to tell them everything about the market, target consumers,
and how JUST is performing with each.
Daniel Scharff
Head of Insights
and Analytics

What’s driving the mainstream adoption of plant-based proteins? Who are these
consumers, and why do they buy JUST Egg? What’s the most effective menuing and shelfplacement? How should JUST Egg be priced in the market, and what is the elasticity atdifferent price points?
In order to get end-to-end insights on practically everything from market segmentation
to packaging designs, Scharff needs to run a lot of surveys, get the data back fast, and do it
all without breaking the bank.

“I’ve run 40 surveys in the past year, year and a half.
I don’t even want to think about what that would
cost if I paid someone else to do them.”– DANIEL SCHARFF, HEAD OF INSIGHTS AND ANALYTICS

THE ANSWER

Running an agile market research engine
Initially, Scharff contracted a traditional third-party research firm to help him run a pricing
study for JUST, but found the cost and slow turnaround time to be limiting. Instead, he began
using SurveyMonkey Audience to adopt an agile market research framework where hecollected vital insights on his own.
The study cost more than $40k through a third party, vs. $1k doing it myself with SurveyMonkey
Audience,” he said. “The saved money and time means I can quickly run surveys on othervital topics.”
That was the first and last time Scharff paid an agency for research at JUST. Since then he’s
been using SurveyMonkey Audience as his sole research engine because it allows him to senddozens of surveys to a variety of segmented audiences and get back high-quality results fast.

THE TAKEAWAY

Vital insights, on time and under budget
Scharff ’s research showed that their customer base isn’t primarily composed of vegans,but rather meat eaters who are trying to gradually shift to a more plant-based dietfor health reasons. Plus, JUST found that its core customer segment actually eat thefewest eggs, which means Just Egg actually expands the egg category instead of justcompeting with traditional egg sellers.
Using SurveyMonkey Audience to dig into the reasons why these consumers are shifting
to plant-based protein and what they are looking for helps JUST and its retail and foodservice operators provide the highest quality offerings.
CompanyJUSTStrategic goal
End-to-end market insights
Solution
SurveyMonkey Audience
Success factor
Agile market research

He uses it to concept test products, messaging, claims, pricing—anything he needs toget data on to help inform his decisions. He sends surveys to customers to ask where
they go out to eat, how they use JUST’s product, how they discovered it, and more.
Scharff says JUST’s partners laud the company for its sophisticated understanding of
the plant-based protein consumer, and SurveyMonkey Audience is a major driver of thiscapability. And the best part is that Scharff can run as many surveys as he wants,and get data in just a few hours.

Learn more at surveymonkey.com/audience