Economics Case Study: Olive Garden's Economic Market Structure

Olive Garden has always been known for a great Italian meal and family friendly atmosphere. Tradition has always been a strong part of the experience as each meal is start with soup or salad and their patented bread sticks. These and more have made Olive Garden a staple nationwide in Italian cuisine, however like any chain, it does come with a few flaws. Olive Garden’s qualities entail everything a family Italian restaurant with minimal flaws in its design image, food, and customer service.

There are a variety of different business structures that comprise the market in the world today. The most common ones found in the business world today are sole proprietorships, partnerships, and corporations. From these you will also find monopolies and oligopolies. Economists assume there are a number of different buyers and sellers in the market which leads to competition which allows prices to change in response to changes in supply and demand.(1) In many industries you there are substitutes for products, so if one type of product becomes too expensive the consumer can choose an alternative product that is cheaper, or one of better quality.

Oligopolistic markets, such as supermarkets or car manufacturing, can be defined in terms of market structure or in terms of market conduct.

Olive Garden is a family friendly restaurant that specializes in Italian-American dishes, and is well known for their soup, salad, and breadsticks. My family and I ate dinner at Olive Garden in Lafayette, Indiana. The criteria used to rate our experience was the flavor, appearance, and healthfulness of the food, the prompt and efficiency of the service, the price of the meal, and the lighting and decor of the atmosphere. When it comes to the best service, food, price, and atmosphere Olive Garden excels and continues to please their customers.

Olive Garden was founded in 1982 owned and operated by Darden Restaurants. Darden Restaurants is the nations largest most successful restaurant chain. Darden Restaurants also own and operates The Red Lobster chain. Olive garden offers a family home style dining with inspiring recipes from Tuscany, Italy. Their Culinary school was founded in 1999 in Tuscany, Italy. Where they train their chefs and create menus for the restaurant. With a remarkable wine selection and great home cook Italian meal and a affordable menu price I have always enjoyed my stay at the Olive Garden. Olive Garden has received many award throughout their history. Recent awards came from the Nation's Restaurant News which presented Olive Garden with the "Menu Masters" award

This essay will use the Porter’s five forces to analyse the supermarket industry in the US, and I will make a decision on whether the US supermarket industry is attractiveness based on its overall profitability level.

1) An Oligopolistic market structure is a structure where very few large businesses sell a particular standard Good or differentiated Good, and to whose market entry proves difficult. This in turn, gives little control over product pricing because of mutual interdependence (with the exception of collusion among businesses) creating a non-price competition meaning they are the ‘price setters’. A good rule to help classify an

The first Olive Garden was founded in Orange County, Florida in 1982. It was founded by Curtis Dayton, the first restaurant was opened on December 13, 1982. By 1989 there were 145 Olive Garden restaurants. They now have 800 operating locations globally. Olive Garden has been around 33 years on December 13, 2015.

Two different market structures are monopoly and oligopoly. Oligopoly is a type of monopoly but isn’t exactly the same. Monopoly is the structure that most businesses have which doesn’t have much competition. Oligopoly is a rather difficult business structure for new companies to join.

Whole Foods Market is a superstore chain in Austin Texas that deals in natural and organic food products exclusively. The organization ranks among the most socially responsible organizations in the world, and the fourth placed in the US Environmental Protection Agency list. The trading organization exists within a market crowded with competitors from its area of operations, and those who offer contrary products to what it proposes. Therefore, answer to the question of how it manages to survive within such a competitive environment is only understandable if we evaluate the different types of market structures. The markets have different characteristics, which determine the strategies applied by the various organizations in the continuum (Etro, 2009).

The organization and characteristics of a specific market where a company operates is referred to as market structure. While markets can basically be classified by their degree of competitiveness and pricing, there are four types of markets i.e. perfect competition, monopolistic competition, monopoly, and oligopoly. In perfect competition markets, many firms are price takers whereas monopolistic competition markets are characterized by the ability of some firms to have market power. In contrast, oligopoly markets are those in which few firms can be price makers while monopoly market is where one firm can be a price maker.

Olive Garden is a popular restaurant on a Saturday evening for couples and families seeking to find an authentic Italian meal. The restaurant at 1025 Dana Dr, Redding, CA is one of the 800+ Olive Garden restaurants. The atmosphere in this restaurant takes you on a journey to Italy, the staff is professional and obliging, and the food tastes like it is from heaven above. It is a great place to have a wonderful meal with friends and family.

Firms within the fast food industry fall under the market structure of perfect competition. Market structure is a classification system for the key traits of a market. The characteristics of perfect competition include: large number of buyers and sellers, easy entry to and exit from the market, homogeneous products, and the firm is the price taker. Many fast food franchises fit all or most of these characteristics.

The markets today are so complex and deal with so many variables it can be difficult to understand just exactly how they operate. In the following I will reveal the different kinds of market structures along with their different pricing strategies. Relating to these topics, I will focus on the importance of cost, competition and customer.

According to McConnell and Brue “Economists group industries into four distinct market structures: pure competition, pure monopoly, monopolistic competition, and oligopoly. These four market models differ in several respects: the number of firms in the industry, whether those firms produce a standardized product or try to differentiate their products from those of other firms, and how easy or how difficult it is for firms to enter the industry” (McConnell & Brue, 2005, chap. 21). As part of the MBA/501 course the learning team is tasked with identifying a company for each market structure, and describe the pricing