Dominant Economic Characteristics Of The Specialty Baking Market

The following case study is in regards of economic market structure. In the world of economics all businesses or companies rather, are categorized in certain market structures such as monopoly, oligopoly, or perfect competition, for instance, the market structure for restaurants. Most restaurants are considered monopolistic competition. Being that they all sell and serve food. They have to have instances that vary such as price, logos, servers, locations, décor, types of food, and hospitality.

As mentioned in the case study, Panera Bread Company is known to be one of the leading bakery/café that offers freshly baked pastries and French inspired entrées across various states in the US. However in the recent years, Panera Bread faced a decrease in their usual high growth rate from 9.1% and 12.0% in the year 2000 to merely 0.2% and 0.5% of comparable sales and annualized unit volumes respectively.

Bimbo Bakeries USA, headquartered in Horsham, Pennsylvania is the United States affiliate of Grupo Industrial Bimbo, founded in Mexico City, Mexico. Though Grupo Bimbo is now a multinational corporation, it began as a single family-owned bakery in Mexico City called “El Molino”. Lorenzo Servitje Sendra worked with his father in the family bakery throughout his childhood, but when his father died in 1936 he had to take over. Lorenzo was educated and ambitious, and together with three of his family members devised a plan to increase the scope of their business. They bought five delivery vans to deliver their breads, wrapped in plastic to preserve freshness, to various small stores daily. Customers loved their product and within a few years they had increased production and were expanding outside of Mexico City.

The mark of a successful entrepreneur is a successful business, and Bakers Delight is the most successful bakery in Australia, putting Lesley and Roger Gillespie on the list of the most successful entrepreneurs. Obviously this didn’t happen overnight, and several steps were taken to get to that position, including, but not limited to: staying relevant, becoming a franchise, and producing quality products. Bakers Delight ticks all these boxes, and

Characteristics of different business markets include: General market description, business opportunity, market segmentation, market size & trends, competition, customer profile and business environment. Looking at the different characteristics can help evaluate the market, this can be achieved by dividing the market into specific segments: by geographical market: by customer type: such as industries, professions, age. Evaluate the market size and trends by breaking the market into segments. This is often done to help assess who is the competition and how strong it may be within its own field.

The Regional Food Manager for Ye Olde FoodKing Company has retained Mark Craig of Blue Steel Consulting to perform a regression analysis to forecast demand of your product. The four characteristics readily available included price, competitors’ price, average income, and market population. The results of each regression analysis are presented at the end of this memo. The remainder of this memo describes the regression analysis used and limitations to the data available. Running a regression provides a statistical procedure to estimate the liner dependency of one or more

In addition, Baked My Melissa‟s website supports local and national deliveries. Baked by Melissa’s Mission Statement: To provide dessert-lovers with guilt-free, bite-sized mini cupcakes (the size of a quarter) packed with a flavorful punch. Currently in its third year in the market, Baked by Melissa has created a niche for itself as the leading mini cupcakery that specializes in uniquely flavored mini cupcakes. Within that niche, Kumquat is the closest competitor but lacks the real estate and brand awareness that Baked by Melissa has so strongly built in such a short time. Baked by Melissa‟s competitors also include cupcake and dessert bakeries such as Crumbs, CupcakeStop, Sprinkles (which just opened shop in New York City), Buttercup Bakery and Magnolia to name a few. These bakeries bake and sell cupcakes as well as a variety of desserts with Crumbs being the most dominant in the market. Baked by Melissa‟s marketing efforts over the last three years, managed by Melissa Bushell‟s brother Brian Bushell‟s marketing firm VenueTap, have been highly successful in establishing a strong brand identity and awareness in New York City. Brian Bushell is also the CEO of Baked by Melissa and the primary financier of capital for the company3. Their marketing mix and strategy – a smart combination of high impact and low cost tactics - includes events, partnerships, guerrilla and grassroots marketing, social media and public relations. Now that Baked by Melissa has

Kudler Fine Foods is the brain child of Kathy Kudler. She envisioned a one stop gourmet food store and has grown to three locations to date. She continues to maintain direct control over large bulk purchase order items, stringent customer service policies, and hiring. This paper discusses how the organization competes in the marketplace and the strengths and weaknesses of the company according to the marketing surveys their customers completed. The following also discusses which market structure best applies to the organization and how that structure positively and negatively affects the firm, how the effectiveness of the competitive strategies in the market structure affect the

The purpose of this memo is to offer a recommendation in the restructuring of Interstate Bakeries. This advice has been initiated at the request of company CEO James Elesser so that he can better ascertain which option, filing for bankruptcy or seeking further mergers and acquisitions, would be the best direction to take to counteract flailing profit margins. This is an independent recommendation made from researching the company’s financial history as well as the company’s product portfolio and market segments.

With giants such as Walmart, and Kroger running the grocery store industry it’s difficult for companies such as Smuckers to bargain for shelf-space and prices. Brand name items drawn to the center of the store are what leverages these companies to succeed in the industry. After numerous acquisitions and strategic alliances, Smuckers developed a solid core of product lines which experienced success rapidly. Product lines that experienced the most success as a result of strong positioning in the industry included their Coffee labels, flour and baking products, Oils and food spreads. A 9-Cell Industry Attractiveness/Business Strength Matrix shows that the Industry attractiveness is relatively moderate. With many competitors and strong buyer power from large grocery chains such as Kroger, companies such as Smuckers have explored different strategies that have proved successful in what can be described as a saturated industry. The case insinuates that there may be opportunities in the industry in regards to special markets and perhaps Oils and Baking with sugar free products, but otherwise the recession, although it drove families to buy store bought as opposed to eating out, has had its effects on the food service industry as well.

1. How would you characterize the snack chip category and Frito-Lay’s competitive position in this category?

Panera Bread’s intention is “to make Panera Bread a nationally recognized brand name and to be the dominant restaurant operator in the specialty bakery-café segment.” Panera experienced competition from many numerous sources in its trade areas. Their competition was with specialty food, casual dining and quick service cafes, bakeries, and restaurant retailers, including national, regional, and locally owned. The competitive factors included location, environment, customer service, price, and quality of products. Panera learned from its competitors, none of its competitors had yet

The Cherry Lady falls under the premium chocolate industry. Thus, the porter’s model can be utilized by The Cherry Lady as a framework to structure and analyze its industry. According to the Model, the premium chocolate industry can be impacted by five distinct forces such as rivalry among existing firms in the industry, threats from substitutes, bargaining power of buyers, threats of new entrants, and bargaining power of

2. Evaluate the achievability of the company objectives for Montreaux USA. Identify the most salient (or important) aspects of the chocolate confectionary industry, globally and domestically, that are critical for understanding a new product introduction of this type. Provide support for your conclusions.

Below are some main competitors in the convenience food market. These competitors would be the key determinants in regard of the success of Home Chef. As the market of meal kit market expands, a deep understanding about the major strengths of the contenders would be a valuable source for Home Chef to recognize their threats when they build an effective differentiation strategy.