Estudio De Caso

CASE STUDY


Your team has been invited by Mr. Jimenez, MD of CHERYL’s, to guide him with the start-up of European marketing activities some of their most promising products, Cheryl’s “SUNTOMATO” BBQ sauce.


A large Dutch importer, CONIMEX, has shown interest in “SUNTOMATO”. They have approached Cheryl’s with the intervention of CBI’s sector expert. CONIMEX is only willing to do businesswhen Cheryl’s has HACCP certification, is working towards ISO 14001 and meets European standards for occupational health and safety.
Besides, CONIMEX gave Cheryl’s a few advises:
• EU consumers are more and more into leisure activities at home. Outdoor kitchens are “hot” and people have more sophisticated BBQ’s.
• There are many, many BBQ sauces on the market. Obviously the largemultinationals are well represented, but there is a market for niche players, provided they come up with innovate formulations and packing of products. BBQ sauces are part of the “runshopping” range of products so the packing and product positioning on the shelf is very important
• A lot of retailers (like Tesco in the UK) have published “Codes of Conduct”. CONIMEX wants Cheryl to read these codesand make sure the company complies.
• CONIMEX wants the product delivered DDP Rotterdam in their distribution warehouse for the Benelux. They estimate a starting volume of 1 20Ft container every 2 weeks.


In your first presentation to Cheryl’s, you have informed the management about the following issues:
1. Market Access issues, like HACCP, ISO 14001
2. Consumer preferences
3.Strategic alliances

You and your team members are visiting Cheryl’s today. The appointment has been made with Mr. Maldonado, the marketing manager. Of course you have tried to have a first meeting with the president, Mr. Jimenez, but his secretary told you that both he and the sales manager are far too busy to see you.

Mr. Maldonado receives you in the sales office where he attends thesales desk, being interrupted during his presentation to you by regular phone calls of wholesalers, pressing him to hurry up with the backorders for “SUNTOMATO”. These interruptions are starting to irritate you because it takes him quite some time to go through the production planning files and verify them by intercom with the production manager.

After he has finished his introduction to you,ensuring that Cheryl’s has sufficient spare capacity to make export runs, he puts on the answering machine and takes you on a factory tour.

In principal, the factory is one huge and noisy processing hall, needing artificial lighting the whole day, although on the roof many windows have been opened for ventilation purposes. While standing on the office balcony and shouting, Mr. Maldonado point out toyou the various production stages, all situated around the small original production site at the central square: The construction of the roofs clearly indicates the many stages in which the factory has been expanded. You are impressed of all the cross-factory traffic, which seems to be chaotic but Mr. Maldonado ensures you that every movement is being planned.

Next to the shipping area,divided by a bright orange line painted on the floor, you see the tomato cleaning area. This steamy area produces, where the tomatoes are being cleaned by passing through a tunnel of spraying nozzles which are letting out steam under high pressure, while producing a lot of noise and that is probably why some of the labourers are wearing ear protection. Mr. Maldonado is so kind to borrow a set for you.At the end of this production line, all the tomatoes are being placed by hand on a parallel belt, leading to the mechanized peelers. You noticed that only a few workers are wearing sanitary gloves and caps.

You have to push some heavy and greasy plastic curtains aside in order to follow the belt into the tomato slicing area. Here Mr. Maldonado offers you a cup of coffee from the vending...