NE-165 Case Study: The Fresh Company

"Koninklijke Ahold nv" (Royal Dutch Ahold) was the leading food retailer in The Netherlands in 1990 with an approximately 36% share of the food and grocery market. Moreover, its four U. S. companies (Giant Food Stores, PA.; Bi-Lo, NC.; Finast, OR.; and Tops Friendly Markets, NY) ranked it number ten among the largest U. S. food retailers . Despite this dominance and obvious knowledge of food wholesale and retail distribution, Ahold had historically been unable to capture a satisfactory share of the fresh food business in The Netherlands. Yet this business represented approximately $7 billion in current business and, perhaps more importantly, was thought by many to hold the key to future success in the food industry. The case study documents the set of circumstances that led Ahold to experiment with a new food store format that, its management hoped, would allow a more effective penetration of the fresh food business. A project director is appointed with the assignment to build a new fresh foods business. The case describes his initial actions and presents the rather disappointing results after the store had been opened nine months. Part '~A" of the case ends with an outline of the areas that the project director feels merit strategic redirection in order to achieve more acceptable performance. Part "B" of the case summarizes the actions incorporated into a new strategic marketing plan in hopes to salvage the project. New financial results, nine months after the repositioning, are presented.Agribusiness,

Strengthening the Competitive Position of Commodity Marketers Two Case Study Approaches

Producers and marketers of agricultural commodities are often beset with a similar set of problems that generally may be reduced to the following question: "how can we modify our product or program in such a way as to gain a competitive edge on our competition?" As every commodity marketer knows, there is, unfortunately, no easy answer to this question. Obtaining higher prices and returns for agricultural products is possible, but requires commitment, vision and attention to the ever-changing marketplace. The current monograph contains two case studies that approach this perennial question from different agricultural commodity industries--fresh produce and turkeys--that are surrounded by different sets of basic supply and demand conditions. Yet, in each case, the companies depicted have been particularly aggressive in their approach to marketing and at least moderately successful in their quest for higher producer returns. Both of these cases are based on real companies and current data. In the first instance, TruFresh International (TFI) has been substituted for the company's actual name but the circumstances documented in the case have not been altered, and in the second example, Plainville Turkey Farm (PTF) is indeed the name of the firm. The story of each is instructive in a different way. Simply put, TFI, long an innovator in fresh produce marketing, is confronted with the challenge that several of its competitors are beginning to duplicate certain of its most successful product and market innovations. The case focuses on the strategic alternatives that TFI may have at its disposal to address this problem, typical to so many commodity industries. In the second instance, PTF is faced with a related but narrower issue: the PTF brand of fresh turkey products has been received enthusiastically in Central New York State as a high quality brand and one for which consumers have demonstrated a willingness to pay a premium. The dilemma for PTF is whether, and with what strategy, should it attempt to expand its well established branded line of turkey products to new regions and new markets? Both of these firms are confronted with a set of marketing challenges that will sound familiar to nearly all commodity-based companies. In discussing the events that led to the situations faced by these two companies and the strategic options available to address them, students, executives and industry practitioners will gain an improved understanding of the process involved in adding value to differentiate agricultural commodities.Marketing,

NEW DEVELOPMENTS IN GROCERY MANUFACTURER AND DISTRIBUTOR MARKETING PROGRAMS: A SURVEY OF U.S. WHOLESALERS AND RETAILERS

The retail food industry has taken initiatives to improve cost and to return the focus of management to the consumer. Among these initiatives are Efficient Consumer Response (ECR) and category management. A mail questionnaire elicited perceptions on these issues from 95 executives among U.S. food wholesalers and retailers. This study found that ECR category management are being used to streamline costs and to remove logistical inefficiencies. Although it is widely recognized that category management provides a consumer focus, distributors seemingly brush aside tactics that target individual customers in favor of efforts that target logistical efficiency.Agribusiness, Marketing,

A FORECAST FOR THE GROCERY INDUSTRY IN THE 1990S

Agribusiness,

An Exploratory Modeling of The Decision Process of New Product Selection by Supermarket Buyers

Consumer/Household Economics, Food Consumption/Nutrition/Food Safety,

The Strategic Role of Supermarket Buyer Intermediaries in New Product Selection: Implications for Systemwide Efficiency

Agribusiness,

THE YEAR 2000: A FOOD INDUSTRY FORECAST

Agribusiness,

EXPERIMENTAL PRICE VARIABILITY AND CONSUMER RESPONSE: TRACKING POTATO SALES WITH SCANNERS

Consumer/Household Economics, Demand and Price Analysis,

How to Regulate Online Platforms: Why Common Carrier Doctrine is Inappropriate to Regulate Social Networks and Alternate Approaches to Protect Rights

Concerns about the “concentrated control of so much speech in the hands of a few private parties” and their ability to suppress some user speech have led to calls to regulate online platforms like common carriers or public accommodations. Advocates of that regulation theorize that social media platforms host today’s public forum and are open to all comers and so should have a responsibility to be content neutral and allow all voices to be heard. Traditionally, the argument that private players, as opposed to only government actors, can violate individuals’ free speech rights was a progressive cause, but recently conservative voices have embraced it as well, leading to seemingly unified policy across the aisle. Classifying platforms as common carriers would place them in the sphere of public actors and impose nondiscrimination policies, preventing them from censoring the speech of their users. On the surface it is an appealing position that could limit Big Tech’s power to control content and shape the public conversation. Unfortunately, however, not only are these platforms likely outside the scope of existing common carrier doctrine, but even if such obligations were imposed on them, this would not address the underlying problem: the role the platforms play in developing the harmful content in the first place. Common carrier regulation may be appropriate in cases where information intermediaries are mere conduits of information, but it would not work in the social media context because those platforms are not mere conduits; instead, they actively participate in the facilitation and amplification of user content

Schrems\u27s Slippery Slope: Strengthening Governance Mechanisms to Rehabilitate EU-U.S. Cross-Border Data Transfers After Schrems II

In July 2020, the Court of Justice of the European Union (CJEU) invalidated the Privacy Shield Framework, the central data governance mechanism that once governed cross-border data transfers from the European Union (EU) to the United States. For the second time in five years, Europe’s top court invalidated the primary method of cross-border data transfers. Both times the CJEU found that the United States’s surveillance laws were, and remain, overbroad and fail to provide EU citizens with protections that are essentially equivalent to those guaranteed under the EU’s General Data Protection Regulation (GDPR) in light of the Charter of Fundamental Rights of the European Union. As a result, more than 5400 companies that utilized the Privacy Shield Framework are now scrambling to implement new mechanisms to govern their data transfers along with what they hope are effective supplementary technical, operational, or contractual measures to achieve an essentially equivalent level of protection for their cross-border data transfers from the EU to the United States. Currently, there exists minimal guidance about how companies may satisfy the GDPR’s requirements. Even if the United States and the EU negotiate and implement a “Privacy Shield 2.0” in the near future, a new framework is unlikely to remedy some of the faults the CJEU has consistently identified in U.S. surveillance law. This Note argues that a combination of private-law enhancements, contractual and technical, along with minor modifications to the administrative and judicial oversight of U.S. intelligence agencies, is required to create a sound and stable framework that achieves the needs of EU individuals’ privacy rights and still enables the United States to exercise legitimate foreign surveillance in the interest of national security