When selecting our case, we wanted to choose a company that a majority of our class wouldn’t have heard of before. We were researching possible topics and companies and came across Beech-Nut Nutrition Corporation. The company sold a wide variety of products ranging from vacuum-sealed jars of bacon to chewing gum from its inception in 1890. However, Beech-Nut’s most lucrative product was its baby food, which began around the 1930s. At this time, the company was the second largest producer of baby food products in the U.S. The company differentiated itself from competitors by packaging its product in glass jars rather than cans, which were used by most manufacturers. Their baby food line did well, but sales took off with the arrival of the postwar baby boom, where sales nearly doubled between 1948 and 1950. By 1950, Beech-Nut had 48 different types of jarred baby foods that provided more than a quarter of the company’s $70 million of revenue.
Through multiple mergers and acquisitions, Beech-Nut was eventually purchased as a subsidiary of Nestle with hopes of turning the product around after a few years of hardship. Nestle had the marketing and advertising budget Beech-Nut needed to gain a share of the competitive market. By 1986, Beech-Nut had regained its spot as the second largest producer of baby food products with 20% of the market share. The company was able to build a reputation for pure, high-quality products. However, this was not the case. Due to financial hardships, Beech-Nut signed a contract with Interjuice Trading Corporation, a wholesaler who produced apple juice concentrate that was sold well below the market price. This lower price saved the company about $250,000 a year. Initial tests of the apple juice concentr...
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...ces and the tough decisions executives must make between the delicate balance of production costs and quality. We learned a lot through this case, including the process following the unearthing of a large-scale fraud by a leading baby food producer. Even though the executives and the company got away with their fraudulent behavior for a good amount of time, eventually their actions were brought to light and not only did they face the consequences of their actions, the company’s reputation suffered tremendously due to their choices. Additionally, we gained a greater understanding of the fraud triangle and how intense external and internal pressure can create the need to make unethical decisions. Lastly, we learned that fraud does not only consist of the misappropriation of assets. In this case the fraud was purposeful misrepresentation of information and not assets.
In order to right the ship that is America’s food industry, we need to recognize the monopolies in the U.S food industry. These massive food conglomerates must be broken up in order to create competition in the market. This will allow the completion to dictate the market. More companies means more competition, and when companies compete, the consumer wins.
My organization, Trader Joe’s, is not an international business. Their stores are all located in the United States; therefore, I chose Whole Foods, who is a main competitor of Trader Joe’s for this assignment.
Today’s society is full of products that have numerous varieties. But, little do customers know about the time before when there was one type of each product. In Malcolm Gladwell’s “Ketchup Conundrum” article, he offers many different situations providing an explanation on how some products came to be, and how some name brands made their way into the business world. Consumers are lucky today that there is almost any variety of product to fit their wants or needs.
Moore, L 1997, The Flight to Franchising, US News & World Report. June 10, pp. 78-81.
The fruit juice and health drinks market has, over the past couple of years, seen a massive growth both in terms of sales and of the increasing demographic of customers that are choosing to purchase the products, especially at the expense of carbonated drinks. In 2006 the estimated value of the total market was £2.77 billion at retail selling price, having grown from 30.7% in 2002 (Key Note, 2007). Innocent Drinks are the markets biggest player with a market share of around 62% , selling in excess of 600,000 drinks every week (Barnett, 2005) The business is currently valued at £100 million. Not only content with being the largest distributor of smoothies the business has branched out to start the selling of "thickies" a yoghurt based drink which promises to be a hugely innovative idea and also water based fruit drinks aimed at children.
Wise hoped to launch the business right after business school, but he couldn't get the financing. "Investors had a hard time relating to egg production," he recalls. Fifteen years la...
“Most people in the U.S. want to do the right thing, and they want others to do the right thing. Thus, reputation and trust are important to pretty much everyone individuals and organizations. However, individuals do have different values, attributes, and priorities that guide their decisions and behavior. Taken to an extreme, almost any personal value, attribute, or priority can “cause” an ethical breach (e.g. risk taking, love of money or sta...
The company of Corning has gotten to the point of its popularity and run-of-the-mill house hold commonness not on pure luck alone but with a plan, a plan for innovation, and inspiration. This plan is known as Corning's Innovation Recipe; The Innovation Recipe was built upon the previous set of values dubbed Total Quality Management by the previous, now retired C.E.O James Houghton of thirteen years. He was much lauded as a great all inspiring man who at a time of great economic distress in which as Roger G. Ackerman puts it “ roughly half of the companies listed on the Fortune 500 fell by the wayside” or in layman's terms half of the big companies had gone bankrupt due to the recession at the time . The recipe is composed of five bullet points of guidance first of which is...
The history of Big Rock is that of confidence, determination and creativity. Since inception, Big Rock’s strategy has surrounded the idea of quality-first, producing great tasting products to drive sales revenues. Unfortunately, this product-first strategy has become less and less effective as time has gone on. The resulting poor performance of new products and declining profitability of previously successful products could be due to several factors.
Krispy Kreme Case Study Question 1. The chief element of Krispy Kreme's strategy is to deliver a better doughnut and to appeal to customers in new ways. They have taken great steps to insure customer satisfaction from the use of their proprietary flour recipe to their automated doughnut making machines. They have chosen to target mainly markets with 100,000 households. They also were exploring smaller-sized stores for secondary markets.
Hanson, J. R. (n.d.). Fraud or confusion? RDH Magazine, 19(4). Retrieved 3 15, 2014, from http://www.rdhmag.com/articles/print/volume-19/issue-4/feature/fraud-or-confusion.html
Kroger Timeline. (2013). In Progressive Grocer, 92(10), 30-52. Retrieved January 28, 2014. Retrieved from http://web.ebscohost.com.southuniversity.libproxy.edmc.edu/ehost/detail?sid=e0985541-de1c-4587-93a3-fa8be9bac40f%40sessionmgr114&vid=1&hid=127&bdata=JnNpdGU9ZWhvc3QtbGl2ZSZzY29wZT1zaXRl#db=bth&AN=91527502
Bakery markets are well developed and prosperous in South China. In our factory, honey-walnut-cake is a high-nutritional content, low lipid, healthy cake that meets consumers’ nutritional requirements. Our special honey-walnut cake could be frozen and preserved in fridge’s frozen layer, the taste will change only a little bit within three days, after the heating by microwave oven, the taste will beclose to the original taste. Besides, this cake after freezing in the refrigerator, it could be persevered without preservatives in room temperature and being transported by long-distance. Even though the bakery market in South China is competitive, we believe our special honey-walnut cake could draw customers’ attention and meet their favor.
The Hollate Manufacturing case provided by Anti-Fraud Collaboration has well illustrated how several common issues in an organization contributed to the fraud’s occurrence. These issues can be categorized into two major groups: ethical culture (internal aspect) and internal control system (external aspect). By taking effective actions to enhance these two aspects, an organization can protect itself against the largest frauds, which result in financial and reputational damage.
After looking at trends in the market and seeing that consumers are becoming more health conscious and the need for food that is easy to prepare it was decide that this product would do well in a consumer market made up of mid and upper mid income families and individuals.