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Maple Leaf Consumer Foods - Fixing Hotdogs A

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ADMS 4900 GROUP PROJECT REPORT

"MAPLE LEAF CONSUMER FOODS - FIXING HOT DOGS (A)"

BACKGROUND INFORMATION

Maple Leaf Foods (MLF), a result of many mergers and amalgamations, has been in Canada for over 100 years. Its operations focus on three core areas: meat products, agribusiness and bakery products. The meat product group is the largest, with sales to about $2.5 billion in 2000. Each business is made up of independent operating companies (IOCs), with each IOC run by a president and encouraged to follow a common set of values. Efforts are underway to optimize vertical coordination of the IOCs. A major concern for the meat product division is the loss of market share in the hot dog industry where average price per kilo is increasing …show more content…

RESULTS OF SITUATION ANALYSIS

MLF is losing market share due to proliferation of unsuccessful brands such as _Beef Dogs_, _Lean 'n Lite_ and _Burns_. Having too many brands has spread corporate resources thin and has underutilized the Maple Leaf brand name leading to lack of a national identity of their hot dog segment, productivity problems and rising costs, both operational and production.

THE ALTERNATIVES & THEIR ANALYSIS

ALTERNATIVE 1: _Eliminate poor performing hot dog brands and re-allocate the funds associated with them to existing brands that are doing well in order to increase their sales._

The hot dogs that we are trying to improve sales for are: _Hygrade_, _Maple Leaf Originals_, _Top Dogs_ and _Shopsy's_. This option involves reformulating _Top Dogs_ to make it taste better and provide value for the consumers, without trying to make it a national brand. MLF will increase market research in order to gain vital information to help properly position this brand in each of the different regions. MLF can borrow money from other, more profitable IOCs

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