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ABSTRACT
Specialty Food and Beverage is facing growing pains from its rapid expansion over the last decade and more. The case provides a summary of the challenges faced by the company in the areas of supply chain management, marketing plans, the creation of economic value, and the development of a long term strategy for profitable growth.
Keywords: small business, supply chain, marketing
INTRODUCTION
Late one afternoon in March 2009, Tim Casey, owner of Specialty Foods and Beverage (SF), purveyor of fine teas, sat down and composed a memo to his senior staff. SF had had superior growth over the last sixteen years; this growth had caused "growing pains" in the organization structure and operations of the firm. In the "early days" Tim made all the major decisions for the company; revenues in the very early years were shy of the $1 million mark, and most of the decisions seemed quite straightforward.
Now that revenues were nearing the $25 million mark, Tim was finding that decisions and operational procedures that worked well in the past were inadequate. SF's line of product offerings had risen sharply, the supply chain had become much more complicated and relationships with customers more difficult to manage. In addition, several high quality competitors had entered the market in recent years. Although profitability was still good, SF could no longer afford to operate inefficiently. The specialty tea market was now crowded with competitors, with all of them attempting to grab a portion of SFs hefty market share.
Tim had decided: the senior staff were going to meet in two weeks for a three day retreat to sort out some of the challenges facing SF. All aspects of the company were to be examined.
SPECIALTY FOOD AND BEVERAGE
Specialty Foods and Beverage (SF) is a privately held small tea company that imports tea (and some other tea-related food and beverage products) from several suppliers abroad and markets these products to both wholesale and retail customers, primarily in the USA. The company was founded in 1989 by Sam Westgood, Sheila Westgood, and Bob Jonas. The idea had been hatched some years earlier when they had met with some friends and discussed the lack of high quality tea in the United States. Sensing an...