Birdseye

BIRDS EYE AND THE UK FROZEN FOOD INDUSTRY
Birds Eye and the UK Frozen Food Industry is an article that explains the history and development of one of the biggest and consolidated frozen food firms.It also does an analysis of this industry in the UK since the creation of Birds Eye.
INTRODUCTION
The firm was created in 1922 and was owned by General Food Corp.
By 1942 Unilever had becomestrongly interested in the Birds Eye’s business for its value to its subsidiaries and one year later, in 1943, Unilever acquired it.
Because of the investment in the infrastructure of the industry, BirdsEye was very successful in the 1950s and 1960s. By the 1970’s the landscape had changed and new entrants entered the market and impacted on the profitability and dominance of Birds Eye.
In 1979, theproblem facing Birds Eye was the decline of both their market share and their profitability.
1) Why did Birds Eye develop as a vertically-integrated producer?
Integrate vertically  a firm isvertically integrated when they perform all the steps from supply of raw materials to distribution of particular products.

The reasons why Birds Eye is vertically integrated are:
• Rapid Growth: As in1950’s and 1960’s there is a period of continuous expansion in terms of demand and sales, it made sense for BE to vertically integrate so as to secure the raw materials, the distribution andproduction capacities.
• Underdevelopment of the infrastructure: The infrastructure needed to support the business was not completely developed. It was a problem for farmers and retailers to supply thishuge demand. Consequently, it was clever to integrate both forward and backward to manage the entire supply chain.
• Quality of the product: As we are talking about frozen food industry, the quality ofthe products has to be very high, because the product has to be frozen at the right moment and needs a special care in terms of quality. If the company controls its own production it’s easier to...