Sara Lee Case Study Essay

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.

The beef industry is an important asset to United States agriculture as a whole. Over a million agricultural entities benefited from the sales of cattle and calves in the year 2000. Gross totals from sales of cattle and calves in 2000 totaled $40.76 billion accounting of 21% of all agricultural receipts making the beef sector the largest single agricultural enterprise. Direct and indirect employment in or related to the production and processing of beef supports over 1.4 million full-time-equivalent jobs in the US as well. Cattle are produced in all 50 states and their economic impact contributes to nearly every county in the nation and they are a significant economic driver (Lawerance and Otto, 2000).

This results from the fact that it is a mature segment with many well established companies vying for market share. The industry is highly consolidated and very fragmented. To grow their businesses, companies rely heavily on mergers and acquisitions to capture additional market share. Historically, the grocery industry has been characterized by slow growth which results in strong price competition and the development of aggressive marketing campaigns between existing firms. Perceived product quality and strong brand recognition by consumers are the basis of competition among firms in the industry. The source of General Mills’ competitive advantage lies in its ability to develop innovative products and highly reputable brands. As a result, they hold cost leadership positions across a number of grocery categories. Exhibit 1 shows the top US companies according to their sale of packaged foods globally. Market leaders include Kraft Foods, PepsiCo, Nestle, Mars, Kellogg, and General Mills, however, neither company possess an overwhelming share of global sales. This is in part due to the large degree of product diversity throughout the industry and the strong brand rivalry of each competitor’s labels.

Trader Joe’s is a leading firm that is taking over the supermarket industry. The company completely altered the idea of a traditional supermarket and turned it into a whole new experience for consumers. Through Trader Joe’s strategic planning, they’ve paved a way for consumers to have high-quality products while paying low prices. Trader Joe’s provides fewer products that are health-conscious, unique and privately labeled. Trader Joe’s has utilized this, secrecy, employee job satisfaction, culture and starting trends to its advantage. Within its industry companies are divided into different strategic groups. Aldi, similar Trader Joe’s strategic planning, is apart of the cultured-discount neighborhood market. This firm continues the low-stock, less-waste, small store, and low price method. A Walmart express used a hybrid strategy that made it a cross between a grocery, pharmacy, and convenience store. Tesco is the third that falls with small neighborhood markets strategy and focused on organic products, similar to Trader Joe’s. As the company grows and expands, there is caution in change of Trader Joe’s processes. With growth, there comes new management and employees which can alter the way a specific store is ran and there is worry of change in the stores normal procedures. Change that doesn’t follow the process could ultimately result in a downfall, so this can be considered a key challenge to watch in the future. Increased bureaucracy is additionally a

It is possible that Helen’s improve its performance by developing a market plan which includes an executive summary, a situational analysis, the establishment of a market objective(s), identifying the target

Kudler is planning to have an annual revenue increase by 5% within 12 months breaking it down to four categories. A quarter percent gain is anticipated in the projects launch as well as the training of employees’. Profits will increase by a half of a percent during the assessment and alteration of the project with the promotion of the Frequent Shopper Program taking place at this time as well. In each phase of the development customer satisfaction will increase so will revenue, which will lead to an overall increase of 4.75% (Kudler Fine Foods. (2004). Apollo.).

Kudler Fine Foods is a privately held upscale specialty food store, located in the metropolitan area of San Diego. Currently the company has three locations in La Jolla, Del Mar, and Encinitas. Kudler stores have a fine selection of bakery and pastry products, fresh produce, fresh meat, seafood, condiments, packaged food, cheese, and specialty dairy products. Each of the stores has a domestic and imported fare. The owners at Kudler are exploring ways to expand the organization and maximize profits. The three options for expansion are going public through and IPO, acquiring another organization in the same industry, and merging with another organization. This paper will list the three options

The topic being researched is how Kudler Fine Foods can improve the success of the business by preparing for possible competition, and streamlining expansion procedures. The sources used are the Kudler Fine Foods Strategic Plan, and The University of Phoenix online databases. Findings suggest that implementing a research and market analysis plan, as well as an effective risk management plan will ensure successful expansion and growth of Kudler Fine Foods. A risk management plan and market analysis of new locations, will allow Kudler to acknowledge potential problems and pre pare for them. The following is a problem statement explaining what is currently wrong with Kudlers plans on expansion, and how they can improve these

This paper will discuss the kroger company’s strategy and competitive advantage. It will also discuss competition and strategy from rival company Walmart. Research will show whether Kroger uses an offensive or defensive strategic approach to business practices. It will discuss mergers and acquisitions of The Kroger Company (Bethel University, 2017).

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.

The Pillsbury Cookie Challenge is a case study written by Natalie Mauro under the supervision of Professor Allison Johnson. The case study creates an open discussion about what the marketing manager of the refrigerated baked goods category for Canada General Mills should do to revive his products. Ivan Guillen, the marketing manager, was faced with tough challenges. He was initially “…faced with the challenge of developing a strategy that would lead to improved business performance on his category” (Johnson and Mauro, p.1, 2011). To clarify, Guillen’s category is refrigerated baked goods (RBG), which means, this category is his marketing responsibility. The issue here is that “RBG was GMCC’s fourth largest category, and its performance over the past two years had been less than stellar” (Johnson and Mauro, p.1, 2011). It is important to note that GMCC stands for General Mills Canada Corporation. Pillsbury has enjoyed majority market share in the RBG category in Canada, however, recently, the market was experiencing only moderate growth. Guillen was disappointed that their goal of 5%-7% market growth was not being achieved mainly in the refrigerated cookie dough segment. To be exact, their volume growth for two years was flat and they were having difficulty reaching new households. There was a shift among consumer’s purchases, which Guillen was challenged to figure out why.

Foods Fantastic Company is a public company which mainly operating regional grocery store in Maryland. This Company relies on application programs, such as bar-code scanner, to entre sales to the system. The FFC majority depends on the computer system to run their business. Based on this situation, the Information General Controls review is necessary for this company as the reason that ITGC is the foundation of every categories of the internal control.

This case involves a mid-sized, regional grocery store chain called Reed Supermarkets. Reed has 192 retail stores, two regional distribution centers and 21,000 employees in five states in the Midwest of the United States. This case discusses Reed’s market strategy for the Columbus, Ohio, market in particular, which is one of Reed’s largest markets. The Columbus market has grown slightly over the past five years, while Reed’s market share has dwindled slightly in the market. Reed has watched their market share stagnate with the entrance of new competitors (10% growth in stores) and a dramatic shift in customer preferences to value or

The whole process throughput time of making a dozen of cookies is 26 minutes. It takes washing, mixing and spooning 8 minutes to make a dozen of cookies. And preparation and bake time totally are 10 minutes. The final step of cooling, packing and accepting payment of cookies takes roommate 8 minutes to finish the cycle. Assume the night capacity is 4 hours, so Kristen and roommate have 240 minutes operating time. Since the oven only holds one tray, the second dozen takes an additional 10 minutes to bake. For example, first dozen of cookies take 26 minutes to make, second dozen of cookies take 36 minutes to make and third dozen of cookies take 46 minutes to make. So we can

Ben and Jerry’s, founded in 1978, is a market leading distributor of super-premium ice creams, frozen yogurts, and sorbets, and has built a reputation on being a socially minded company. They were pioneers in the policy of “caring capitalism” and place heavy importance on the concept of social responsibility, a practice which many companies have since adopted. They have enjoyed long-term success as a result of their progressive methods of doing business and novel ideology regarding how a company should be ran. However, due to increased competitive pressure and declining financial performance, they have now been confronted by the threat of a takeover. Recently four