Ice-Fili and the Russian Ice-Cream Market
The Russian Ice Cream market is worth $ 500 million, with Ice Fili as the market leader. The industry concentration, determined by the market share of the four largest firms in a sector is low for Russian ice-cream industry. It indicates that the industry is highly fragmented and competitive. The industry has experienced a low growth rate of ~ 3.5 % for the last two years and the other factors influencing the overall market size, like the population and the per capita consumption of ice cream have been stagnant over the years. The external factors like the shrinking frozen-foods imports market coupled with low entry barriers caused increase in the number of new entrants into the ice-cream market.
Ice-Fili is a traditional Russian manufactured who has been the market leader in the Russian ice-cream industry but over the years the supremacy and competitive edge has been declining. Due to its traditional competency it has a lot of capacity, much of which is lying unutilized. Out of its capacity of 200 tons/day, it is utilizing only about 25% (with an annual production 16000 tons, assuming 300 working days).
Ice-Fili has also followed the strategy of sourcing most of its supplies from domestic market and hence in the short run it is relatively immune to imports and hence any negative international events. Over past few years, Ice-Fili has invested significantly in upgrading the machinery such that about 75% of the current machinery is of new generation. This is one of the strengths of Ice-Fili operations and can be leveraged.
The company is also leading the way in innovativeness and has already received recognition for introducing innovative products. This is one of the strengths of the company since innovative products will help to differentiate its products from the other competitor products as well as the new products can be exclusively branded as compared to the other flagship products from older Soviet times.
The ice-cream space in Russia can be visualized in context of three strategic groups namely –
1. International Players
2. Traditional Manufacturers
3. Local Players
Traditional Manufacturers
Traditional Manufacturers are the ice cream manufacturers of the erstwhile USSR which were privatized in the wake of the dissolution of USSR. They prefer using natural ingredients as compared to MNC’s who use preservatives. They have traditionally not been strong proponents of Marketing and their marketing expenses constitute 1 % of their overall revenue. They have been the market leaders in the Russian markets till date but most of them have old plants and technologies.
Everyone is looking for better and healthier life! People today pay more and more attention to the food they eat, they want it to be healthy and tasty, on the other side modern life is so dynamic and eventful, that the food must be fast. So you need to come up with something that will support all these needs. The great solution is Frozen Yogurt. It is a refreshing, savory dessert that combines the flavors and textures of ice cream and sherbet. Frozen yogurt is a new-comer in the dessert market. Nevertheless, “the history of frozen desserts dates back thousands of years to Asia where water ices were first made.’’ (wiki) Yogurt was brought to the U.S. in the early 1900s and steadily increased in popularity as a health food item over the next several decades. By the 1970s, with the popularity of ice cream technology was transferred to the production of frozen yogurt. But it’s entry into the dessert market was a distinct failure—consumers complained that it tasted too much like yogurt. Relaying on consumer demand for a sweet product that tasted like ice cream, TCBY opened its first store in 1981. The highest popularity comes to Fro-yo by the mid 1990s. But in the late 1990s as Americans turned their attention to high-protein, high-fat diets, demand for frozen yogurt slowed considerably. Low-fat foods such as frozen yogurt fell out of favor as food trends preferred higher fat and lower cost ice cream at the turn of the millennium. Trends changed back to frozen yogurt in the mid 2000s with the advent of live probiotic powder-based mixes. Over the last decade the production of frozen yogurt has grown multi-million dollar business with dozens of competing companies.
o The franchisee would have the opportunity to build a production facility if ICEDELIGHTS was unable to provide the product to the new stores
This company is known to be a monopolistically competitive, because there are still many firms and consumers, just as in perfect competition, but they still have control over what price they charge in their company, because Ben and Jerry's ice cream is differentiated from the other ice cream companies and they provide a lot of non price competition which will be mentioned later in the paper.
All our analysis suggests that if GCP-FFD doesn’t do promotion for Dinardo32 and Dinardo 16 the planned annual targets 2008 for % Marketing Margin would not be met for D32, but for D16 annual targets can be met without any promotions. It becomes imperative to do promotion for Natural Meals for two months (Sep’08,Dec’09) keeping in view the Daft’s plan to enter Organic/healthy frozen food markets with a new product – ‘Healthy Options’. Also, Natural Meals target could not be met by just a month of promotion, hence we recommend promoting it for two months.
Although United Cereal’s products are diversified into many different types of foods and beverages, its main source of revenue remains the breakfast cereals market. The real challenge of this market is clearly seen in the European market, where the national tastes and breakfast traditions vary between countries. As a result, its approach in Europe is more complex than in the United States, which causes higher costs and slower processes.
The relationship between Russia and the rest of Europe has been extremely precarious throughout its existence. From looking to Europe for guidance to outright opposing the interests of Europe, the stance towards Europe has varied greatly. In the post-Cold War era, Russia’s policies have been formed in an attempt to reclaim control over their former sphere of influence, often clashing with European interests in regards to economic, energy, and security matters facing the world.
...forest is to be opened up for extensive industrial development and metropolitan prosperity. Therefore, “dry ice cans” surpasses all possible ideas ever established in its social and economical benefits for the general wealth of the people.
The current Production Capacity is Low to face the upcoming competition-The dairy currently produces 10000 liters of milk per day even after 30 years of presence in the market. This will certainly affect the chances to take advantage of the current growing market and to manage the consumption cycles of the industry. The question of whether to decide on the expansion of production capacity: With an incredible growth expected in the industry, the issue that the management faces now is, whether to increase the production capacity or not. This is very much needed as the expansion of production capacity will equip the company to supply and cater to the demand as well as attain economies of scale, which can be used as a competitive advantage against the new entrants. However, this calls for capital investments on the assets required for expansion.
There were fierce competitions among the producers that have scale and scope of operations which were similar to each other. For instance, the Pepsi Co. and Coca Cola companies have developed the strategy and infrastructure, which are hard for the local sellers to complete with them. However, there were still many producers including new entrants that try to access the market and compete seriously with low price and differentiation- strategies among rival...
Among other leading firms striving to be the best, Birds Eye Foods Ltd. strived to be the leading provider of frozen foods in the growing market. By 1938, the company began their business in the United Kingdom. They have a strong brand name and recognition and have been a leader in the business for sometime. Birds Eye’s vision is providing the best products and raw material to consumers on a daily basis. The business will be successful on the demand of everyday products in the market and all over the world. This will help build the industry and help develop some of there main products. This industry as a whole will go all out to provide exceptional products and services to its consumers.
Product: "To make, distribute and sell the finest quality all natural ice cream and related products in a wide variety of innovative flavours made from Vermont dairy products."
All these improvements will boost profitability by identifying at least or more that EUR 30 mio required by U.S.A headquarters. However, we believe it is not realistic to manage all this turnaround in 1 year’s time. It might take from 2 – 3 years.
The history of ice cream goes all the way back to the Fourth century B.C. Early allude to this amazing delicacy involve the Roman emperor Nero (A.D. 37-68) who demanded ice to be brought down from the mountains and merged it with fruit toppings, and King Tang (A.D. 618-97) of Shang, China who had a stroke of genius to creating ice and milk combinations. Ice cream was most likely token over from China back to Europe. Over time, recipes for ices, sherbets, and milk ices progressed and were distributed in the well liked Italian and French royal courts. After the dessert was imported to the U.S., it was distributed by many well-known Americans. George Washington and Thomas Jefferson served it to their guests. In 1700, Governor Bladen of Maryland was recorded as having served it to his guests. In 1774, a London caterer named Philip Lenzi announced in a New Y...
ice cream belonging to the premium category. Based on our analysis, we have identified two major
The ability of the management in positioning and establishing the product is a success in any company that operates for marketing and profit acquisition. Furthermore, the ability of the company and its management to complete and maintain a competitive edge among its competitor throughout the product differentiation is another basis to say that is successful. Also, innovation and the constant development on the product lines and the growing number of customers also define the corporate standing of a company. Effective branding strategy and strong brand name are an important part of the profitable business. But, all the strategies and all marketing theories can be worth nothing without the compliance of the desires of consumers.