Ben & jerry's
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Situation analysis
Ben & Jerry’s is known to produce super premium ice cream. In the US the market of ice cream and specifically the premium market is huge and had a great development. This development (premium ice cream) has been lead by Haagen-Dazs and Ben & Jerry’s. But we can say that the real leader is Haagen-Dazs and Ben & Jerry’s is behind. The market share in 1997 was 34 percent that represent $74M in the US. But in the early 1990s they sales started to fall off and it was clear that they needed to enter international market.
To continue to grow and develop the activity, the international option seemed to be good but the owners intentionally slow the internationalization. When Haagen-Dazs don’t hesitate and records $700M of sales Ben & Jerry’s records only $6M. That is caused by the intention to be slow but also by the lack of strategy. In fact in some cases the just enter the market without strategy, but when they have a strategy, it is not the one which is adapted to the country. They made lots of errors by the past that conduct them to have only 3 percent of international sale on the total amount.
They had to find a way to increase their international sales. So the company made inquiries about opportunities in Japan. In fact it is the second largest ice cream market in the world with annual sales $4.5 billion. When you see the evolution of the amount of sale and you are an ice cream maker, you must be interested by entering this market. Also, Japan is the most affluent country in the world and that is a good aspect for a business specifically in the food industry. Japanese are known to be high-quality product lovers and the super premium Ben & Jerry’s positioning is totally adapted to it. In Japan we can observe two factors of the development of the animal-based food consumption: the school lunch programs with milk as a regular component and