Brannigan Foods by Group 6

Due to a declining divisions sales, market share, and profitability in soup industry for the past 3
years, Bert Clark the vice-president and general manager of Brannigan Food Soups Division
have to decide on four alternative plans his team members proposed that should be
implemented in order to achieve the divisions growth back to a 3% at the end of the fiscal year.
Brannigan is a well-established brand which pioneered over 100 years in food market.
One of the most important divisions is the soup division which holds 40% share companys total
sales with Ready to Eat (RTE) soup as high profitable reaching 71% of total revenue. When
Anabelle, broaden its product range in Fast Meal category and it followed the strategy to
strongly invest in Dry Soups, Healthier Soups and the mentioned Fast Meals. Due to this,
Brannigan faced a steady decline and Brannigan is behind its competitor under health trends,
diet claims convenience offerings, flavors and seasonal products outside of cold weather.
Porters five forces tool is used to analyze the microenvironment and competitiveness
that Brannigan is facing at current market. The rivalry in the food industry is high as many
companies competing based on price, quality, taste, health factors, product innovation and
product usages and benefits while competing nearly same range of product group. Low threat
from new entrance but high levels of advertising and promotion investment in order to
generate brand awareness by existing competitor at the same time difficult to gain shelf space.
Substitute product is largely high as people are more prone on fast food channels compare to
processed food. Furthermore, there are other products that satisfy the same need of a quick,
tasty and cheap course. Customer buying power is high as more competitors exist in market at
the same time, customer is looking for cheap and quality product to be purchased due high
rivalry. Supplier have high bargaining power as they can vary the raw material based on quality
and at the same time price can be fluctuated due to inflation.
SWOT analysis shows Brannigan strengths, weaknesses, opportunities and threats to
consider proposed solution to achieve target goal. Brannigan is currently the market leader
with high market share and it holds high brand awareness. Americans, culture on condensed
and ready to eat soup in daily diet.rannigans sales decreases steadily over the past three
years. A poor job in targeting new segments of the market derived from changes in societys
behaviors and values. Internal teams of Finance, Marketing and Sales, R&D, and Simple Meals
units are not integrated with each other; this might derive form a lack of communication
between the teams. Existing product innovation with new products that satisfies consumers
needs and that will boost sales up to a 3% increase. Growth of private labels grows steadily 5%
per year and retailers seek new shelf space for their products, reducing the shelf space

availability for Brannigan. New competition is entering the market with disruptive and
incremental innovations that threat Brannigans leader position and that have eroded its sales.
Proposed alternatives by Brannigans team need to be analyzed in order to set the target
right while achieving the goal of Brannigans. Invest in the growing sectors focuses on products
and brand that target growing segments by shifting into healthy lifestyles and easy to prepare
meals due to time constrains. This strategy focuses on star products but leaves the cash
cow (RTE) behind. Acquire product lines to complement the core growing sectors it can show
a positive growth as R&D is very low and reduces cannibalization. But this requires large
resources to gain new acquisition and may not be stable. Invest in organic growth from
internally developed new products where it can target a new segment in soup division with
growing lifestyle consciousness. Very low number of product succeeded in past and reduces
existing shelf space in retail stores. Invest in the core where a new product being introduced in
ready to eat group which is the main revenue contributor. A new product may harm the brand
image and large investment doesnt provide added value to ongoing strategy.
Based on the alternatives, our recommendation is that investment in organic growth
and investment in core seems to be ideally fits our strategy on achieving Brannigans goals and
target. It is important to reinforce the cash cow of the division which are the Ready to Eat
Soups (Invest in Core) but also understand that the leader position in the market obliges
Brannigan to invest in R&D due to the changing trends and needs of the market (Invest in
organic growth from internally developed new products). This two strategies targets
companys short and long term profit with proper R&D that stretches the life cycle of RTE
products in market.
Analysis using Porters five forces and SWOT analysis provides good strategies to be
implemented in order to achieve the goal of Brannigan.It is subjective to understand consumers
desires and needs, and try to solve them in the best way possible to create value in the product
offerings . Short term growth is important as it what required by stockholder but at the same
time long term growth also have potentials to break the market and generate future profits as
long term growth decides companys future in long run.