Teaching Case on

BRAC CHICKEN: BRANDINIG ITS WAY OUT

TOWARDS SUSTAINABILITY

Prepared for
Mr. Sheikh Morshed Jahan
Associate Professor
Business Strategy (W501)

Prepared By
Tasmeem Farizma Mihika (RH 33)
Section A, BBA 21st Batch

Institute of Business Administration, University of Dhaka

29 November 2016
 BRAC Chicken: Branding its way out towards sustainability
BRAC Chicken: Branding its Way Out Towards Sustainability
The Black Sunday
It was 11:00 am in the morning of late 2012
when Ms. Sumaiya Tanjim, Head of Sales, BRAC
Chicken, was sitting in her quiet office looking
tensed with a storm going on inside her. The
recent outrage in social media and the
blogosphere about their Ad campaign We love
BRAC Chicken had created a devastating impact
on the brand itself. Slowing down of sales is
probably the least that could have happened.
The advertisement in billboards in the city and in
newspaper front pages had children stating with
sour faces that they hated khichuri, tehari,
semai (our own cuisine) and other children with
smiles saying they loved BRAC chicken. The
media went mad. And when they started
withdrawing the ad, an online newspaper took a
potshot at them by calling up nutritionists who
said, Frozen chicken was absolute rubbish.
Something had to be done as soon as possible to
save the brand from the accusations when fierce
competition is in the market. The next 2 hours in
the meeting would decide the existence and
sustainability of the brand which had started as
a grassroots experiment in the 1970s to create
income generating opportunities for the poor
and improve the poultry sector in Bangladesh
and had then become one of the major players
in the processed food market of Bangladesh. The
clocks tick was pumping up her heartbeat up a
notch. Will she be able to plan out the way to
saving the Brand from this violence on its way to
moving upwards?
A Driving force in the Poultry Industry
of Bangladesh
In the late 1970s, BRAC identified poultry
rearing as a source of income for the
landless, particularly the destitute women.
The meat and egg yields were poor in
villages. In the early 1980s BRAC partnered
in a participatory action research program
aimed at increasing the productivity of small
flocks of hens in village conditions and to
develop a replicable smallholder model, the
success of which led to the development of
the national broiler chicken industry. The
model involved women in a chain of
activities as vaccinators, hatchery
operators, chicken rearers, feed sellers,
producers of hatching eggs and as
producers of eggs for the market. Credit as
well as marketing was integrated into the
model. Over time, BRAC social enterprises
were set up to facilitate each of these
activities.
BRAC Chicken, established in 2004, was the
final link within this chain. The enterprise
was established with a mission of meeting
the growing demands for dressed chicken in
large metropolitan areas, by purchasing
chickens from BRACs poultry rearing farms,
other commercial farms, and rural farmers.
It started out as a broiler processing
enterprise with the capacity to process
approximately 10,000 chickens per day and
was the only automated plant of its kind in
Bangladesh. It had the vision of becoming a
driving force in the poultry sector growth in
Bangladesh. Since then the company had
never had to look back. With its strong
backward linkage and strong integration
with the farmers, the enterprise processed
approximately 10,000 birds per day at that
time, which were sourced from a large
number of independent rural farmers. The
plant purchased chickens from BRACs
commercial broiler farms and independent
farmers, and sold the dressed meat to a
variety of customers including large
restaurants, hotels, supermarkets and even
individual households.
Given that the demand for poultry meat and
eggs in Bangladesh still exceeded the
supply, BRAC Chickens poultry operations
remained an important source of support for
rural farmers while driving growth in the
sector and increasing the supply of high-
yield variety chicks and processed broiler
meat.
 BRAC Chicken: Branding its way out towards sustainability
The BRAC Model
The BRAC Chicken Value network was
strongly interconnected with its backward
links in multiple steps. The process started
with collecting Day old chicks (DOCs) from
the BRAC Poultry farm. BRAC Chicken
acquired 30-40 percent of its supply from
BRAC's commercial broiler farms while the
remaining supply came from other
independent farms, both rural and
commercial. Then those were nurtured for
30- 35 days in the BRAC Poultry Farms and
in rural hatcheries owned privately by
farmers. The feed was procured from their
own BRAC Feed Mills. These chicken were
then purchased by BRAC Chicken for
processing. They were processed by
dressing to be sold as raw chicken as well
as ready to eat frozen products to a variety
of customers including large restaurants,
hotels, supermarkets and even individual
households. Some of its major customers
included KFC, Westin Hotels, Radisson
Hotels, Best Fried Chicken, and BBQ
Bangladesh.
BRAC Chicken managed the quality of its
chicken along each step of the supply chain.
The poultry was under regular supervision of
the vets, particularly during the use of
vaccines, medicine, antibiotics, etc. At the
end of the processing chain, BRAC Chicken
sold high quality chicken, achieving HACCP
('Hazard Analysis and Critical Control Point';
a systematic approach to ensuring food
safety) certification. In the process, BRAC
Chicken also tried to minimize any
production activities that may harm the
environment.
Debut of the frozen foods line
With population increasing at a rapid pace in
cities of Bangladesh especially the capital,
the citizens becoming increasingly busy
with young adults, couples and with the
advent of nuclear families (with working
parents), the demand for ready to cook
convenience food had been rising. The city
dwellers and households were progressively
adapting to frozen foods which included
meat, fish, dairy, and very recently
vegetables.
The huge potential in this emerging market
was identified well ahead by the companies
like Rich and Golden Harvest, who were the
pioneers in the industry. BRAC chicken
launched their halal frozen food range on the
26th of April, 2012 across the country. Their
primary focus was on the high quality of the
products by maintaining international
standards and hygienic processes of
production.
"The customers deserve high quality,
delicious and healthy food. We believe in
serving the right thing at BRAC. So we are
bringing international standard halal and
hygienic processed foods across the
nation."
The products included masala nuggets,
kid's nuggets, regular nuggets, drumsticks,
wings, burger patties, sausage, kebab, cutlet
and chicken tandoori. These were packaged
in 250- 300 gm packets and distributed
initially to the retail supermarkets and
general stores in the urban areas. The
products were priced higher compared to
those of Rich and Golden Harvest. The
affluent middle class and upper class moms
mostly bought such products to be used as
alternatives for snack or tiffin. The sole
focus on processed chicken had been
proven to be a boon and a curse for the
enterprise at the same time. Though
specialization and scaling had been in focus
for the company, there were sufficient
absence of a backup plan when it comes to
external disasters like the avian influenza or
bird flu.
 BRAC Chicken: Branding its way out towards sustainability
The Mega Launch
The company unveiled its product through a
major PR event which was covered by all the
major national dailies, satellite TV channels
as well as the digital media and the
numerous news portals around the
blogosphere. There were billboard
illustrations in major locations and a TVC
was launched. The brand, initially, was able
to create a huge buzz all around the country,
mainly, due to the popularity and highly
positive brand image of BRAC itself.
Branding BRAC Chicken
All the frozen food items were initially
packaged in transparent packaging and the
tertiary package was a cardboard carton
similar to all the other brands in the market.
The illustrations of the prepare food itself,
required nutrition information etc. were
present on the package along with the logo
of the Red BRAC Chicken on top. The
tagline was, Healthy Choice. These
products were available in the chain
superstores like Agora, MeenaBazaar,
Shwapno, PQS, Nandan, CSD etc. They were
also found in the general stores in the higher
end residential vicinities in the metropolitan
cities of Dhaka, Chittagong, Sylhet, Rajshahi,
Barisal and Khulna. There were point- of-
purchase advertisements in the shops to
attract customers along with repeated
telecast of the TVC and the giant billboards
present around the city. The social media
presence was not much noticed except for a
product page in Facebook with a mere
number of followers. This seemed no
different from the social media presence of
the others brands competing in the market.
The advertisements and TVCs were targeted
towards the children who Loved BRAC
Chicken and considered it to be the best
form of snacks.
Later in 2013, BRAC eat@ was launched at
Jamuna Future Park, the largest shopping
mall in Dhaka which was the flagship
restaurant of BRAC Chicken that solely
served BRAC Chicken processed food in
order for customers to experience the
products before making a purchase. The
students of different Universities in the
surrounding were the main customers of the
outlet. However, the business did not
sustain due to much negative feedback
regarding poor service from the customers.
Frozen Food on the Rise
The frozen foods market had been emerging
since the early 2000s. With increasing
numbers of nuclear families and more and
more women entering the workplace, the
demand for processed, ready- to- eat food
had been increasing. The fast paced lifestyle
of the city dwellers especially encouraged
them to opt for such easier options for the
day to day chores like cooking. This
progressive adaption had been mostly
observed in the frozen protein sector,
especially chicken and beef. Additionally,
the marketing campaigns of the frozen food
companies in Bangladesh had spurred an
increase in demand.
The frozen foods domestic market in
Bangladesh could be broadly divided into
four broad segments-
Frozen Ready to Cook Snacks
Frozen Ready to Cook Meat
Frozen Ready to Cook Vegetables
Frozen Ready to Cook Fishes
The global frozen food industry recorded
close to 4% growth in 2010 exceeding $192
billion. The market was expected to see 19%
expansion over next five years exceeding
$228 billion by end of 2015. In terms of
volume the market was expected to exceed
14% growth in the same period to reach
almost 43.5 billion kilograms. Frozen meat
 BRAC Chicken: Branding its way out towards sustainability
represented the leading segment,
accounting for more than 41% of the overall
market in terms of value. Europe accounted
for 37.6% of the global frozen food market
value. For Bangladesh plausible lucrative
export destinations were USA, Canada,
Australia, Middle-East and Europe. (See
Exhibit 1)
Demand for poultry demand had increased
over the years with rising per capita income.
According to latest BBS statistics as of
2010-11, Bangladesh produced
approximately 2 million metric tons of meat,
including poultry and livestock. Meat
processing in industrial plants was a very
recent addition to the food processing
industry in Bangladesh. Only one modern
beef processing facility and ten poultry
processing facilities were currently in
operation. Overall processed, meat
constitute approximately less than one
percent of total meat production. Frozen
food sector showed promise considering
steadily increasing per capita income,
changing family structure (nuclear) and
change in taste and fashion. Although
several large players had successfully
penetrated the market, opportunities lie in
outside Dhaka and Chittagong where the
frozen chain was improving.
Among the four categories, the Frozen
Ready to Cook Meat included frosted whole
chickens, lambs, mutton and beef. These
value added products were for the busy
moms, the bachelor who lived alone, and the
conscious fathers who chose homemade
food for their children instead of eating out.
These were currently available at super
markets and order based by institutional
buyers like restaurants and fast food shops.
Frozen chickens are mostly available
through high end super stores charging
premium pricing. Another market was the
major fast food chains, restaurants, catering
services who purchased quality processed
chicken for further value addition.
In the value chain for frozen chicken market,
products were directly transferred from
poultry firms to dressing facility for further
processing. Once processed, the dressed
chickens were packaged and stored in
chilled warehouse; subsequently moving to
end point for sales. (See Exhibit 2)
The Competitive Landscape
During the advent of the frozen food
industry in Bangladesh, the only players of
the market were the few imported brands
like McCain, Lamb Weston, Doux and range
of imported frozen goods from Al Kabeer
Group. But the scenario has been reversed
now. The local brands had penetrated the
market in a large scale and taken over the
market shares of these foreign players.
However, a few international players like
Eurasia Foods ltd and CP were still shining
bright in the battle of the market share of the
frozen food.
Golden harvest, Rich, Eurasia and Aftab were
in neck to neck competition fighting with
similar market share with the same
categories of product offerings including
frozen snacks, ready-to-eat and ready-to-
cook protein. (See Exhibit 3). BRAC and CP
were big players in the processed chicken
market. Kazi had recently forayed into the
market and time was going to tell whether
they could successfully grab market share.
Golden harvest
Golden Harvest was one of the pioneers in
frozen food industry in Bangladesh, with a
mission to ensuring mouthwatering
healthy foods for the consumers. The
product basket comprised of a variety of
frozen snacks including parathas, frozen
fries, samosa, spring rolls, sausages,
salamis etc. the pricing was highly
competitive compared to other high end
brands in the market. The brand had been
 BRAC Chicken: Branding its way out towards sustainability
focusing on intensive marketing and
branding in tradition as well as digital
media. Different school campaigns, TVCs,
interactive social media page had enabled
the brand to acquire the maximum presence
and market share. The efficiency in the
distribution network had made the brand
available in the superstore shelf. Being the
first of the bunch had given this brand
enough time to capture a huge portion of the
customers with their high quality, yet value
for money product range.
RICH
A leading food brand in Bangladesh, RICH
promised the finest Halal food that there is
since 2007.
Whichever time of the day, be it breakfast,
lunch or an evening snacks, RICHs wide
range of delicious halal foods will surely get
you happy and satisfied every time.
With the mission to be the market leader
through nationwide with sound network and
innovative product portfolio and
continuously improving quality of products
and life style and prime focus on Halal food,
Rich offered a basket of 200 varieties of
products for its customers. There were
breakfast options like RICH meatballs and
Roti Parathas or the freshly made RICH
sausage sandwich, or the evening delicacies
like RICH nuggets, cheesy sausages or
Kievs. There were the traditional options as
well like those of RICH Samosa, Cheese n
Potato or Fish Fingers.
Whatever your mood, we have the right food
for you! Unannounced guests? Simply heat
up some of RICHs frozen food and within
less than a minute you have yummy,
scrumptious snacks. You can even take a
packed meal of RICH foods along with you
for the long drives.
The core message of the brand was
communicated through each and every
marketing campaign it launched. The CSR
activities of RICH like the road safety
campaigns or their sponsorships in sports
were what set them apart in the traditional
and digital media.
Aftab Frozen Foods
Aftab Bahumukhi Farms Ltd. launched its
own brand of processed and further
processed products under the brand name
of Aftab. ABFL had more than 22(Twenty
two) different processed products. These
products were sold in two different
categories. There were general category for
all consumers and customized category. At
that time the customized products were
sold only to KFC. Aftabs products were
priced to capture the higher income
customers. Though the company was
looking forward to cover all income levels,
quality maintenance was the main objective
of this company. Aftab enjoyed almost 25%
market share. For a substantial period of
around 6(six) years it had been extending its
product lines in the market but enough
penetration level had not yet been achieved.
Mainly due to lack of branding and overall
marketing efforts. Though Aftabs products
were considered high quality and the
company had modern procedures and
machineries, there was no well-planned
marketing and promotional efforts.
Kazi Farms Kitchen
Kazi Food Industries Ltd. brought out Kazi
Farms Kitchen branded frozen food (ready
to cook) and ready to eat products that were
palatable and delicious in 1996. Their over
100 products were priced very affordably to
target a wider market as they went for price
competition.
 BRAC Chicken: Branding its way out towards sustainability
Kazi Farms Kitchen offers you a set of four
brand promises for the purpose of keeping
you and your family safe and healthy as well,
such as: No Preservatives, No Tasting Salt,
No Antibiotic Residue and Vegetable Fed
Chickens.
The products were made available in all the
supermarkets as well their own franchise
stores all around Bangladesh. They had a
similar approach to marketing as that of the
market leader Golden Harvest.
CP
Other major player is the multinational food
processing giant, CP, short for Charoen
Pokphand Foods. The company is Thailand
based and rules roost in Pacific Rims
poultry industry. By the policy CP believed
less in advertisement. They have very
recently completed the first phase of their
test marketing in the major cities of
Bangladesh. Test marketing was done by
partnering with existing restaurants with
two or three products mainly chicken balls,
chicken sticks / fingers, chicken
sheekkabab. These products were aimed
towards the younger generation who were
willing to pay premium price for good taste
and high quality. They used an exclusively
branded kiosk inside the restaurants having
frying facility in front of the customers. The
franchise shops were the key marketing
efforts which are spread throughout the
metropolitan making them available at the
doorsteps of the consumers.
Did Everyone Love BRAC Chicken?
After the launch of BRAC Chicken, the brand
was much appreciated by the consumer
market due to the high esteem of BRAC
social enterprises and their success in
reducing poverty through their projects. The
media was abuzz with it. Their objective to
provide high quality nutritious food was
welcomed by the community. The media
was full of praise about the virtues of frozen
processed chicken.
Then came their advertisement. Suddenly
across billboards in the city and in
newspaper front pages there were children
stating with sour faces that they hated
khichuri, tehari, semai (our own cuisine) and
other children with smiles saying they loved
BRAC chicken There was a corresponding
TVC with it communicating the same
message in AV. (See Exhibit 4)
The idea behind the campaign was targeting
the consumers by influencing their
preferences. As the child usually runs
through the supermarket aisles to pick these
things from the shelfs, BRAC Chicken
through it would be a brilliant idea to focus
on them. The brand wanted to provide their
customers with scrumptious meal
alternatives to the same old traditional ones
which were faster and easier to eat.
This particular ad however, was an outrage
by its own virtue.
What do you mean children hate khichuri?
Its one of the things we Bangalees
associate ourselves with
The blogosphere went mad. And when BRAC
started withdrawing the ad and replaced
them with only the latter part, it did not stop.
An online newspaper took a potshot at them
and called up nutritionists who said frozen
chicken was absolute rubbish. In blogs,
angry reactions to the ad mostly ended up in
heated discussions about how NGOs and
civil society folk are making money selling
poverty,
This fiasco was the outcome of one the
most occurring lost in translation
 BRAC Chicken: Branding its way out towards sustainability
A news reporter described the situation as,
Look at it this way. Lets pick the most
common soap commercial. Im absolutely
certain the big Bollywood star with glowing
skin does not use the 30-taka soap I buy
every month. But shes nice to look at, and
not challenging established social notions.
Child experts and nutritionists condemned
the campaign slogan on the billboards
across Dhaka and in the advertisements in
several leading newspapers as it despised
the very food 'Khichuri' recommended to
prevent malnutrition in Bangladesh.
"The campaign is a threat to local food,"
president of Bangladesh Pediatric
Association
Their argument was that 'Khichuri' was a
balanced food. Chicken fry was not that
balanced and was very much linked to
obesity," referring to the advertisement,
showing happy children biting into a chicken
drumstick. A massive group of the socialists
even suggested that this was an effect of
westernization, or the conscious effort to
westernize the society.
The After Math
"As soon as we realized that the message
was being misinterpreted, we decided to pull
down the billboards
The brand was in deep waters. On one side,
the massive outbreak by the people and
constant hatred towards the brand was too
intense to handle. Even after the initial
impact would wear off, this would have a
long term impact on the brand image. And in
this industry which is directly associated
with food and health of the consumers, a
negative brand image can pull the brand
further downwards in terms of market share
as well as brand equity.
The market was becoming more and more
competitive. The players had their branding
game strong and with such similar product
ranges and pricing strategies, that was what
impacted the sales the most. The brand was
a recent entrance in the market and had
much scope of expansion. The initial
penetration was satisfactory with steady
growth. All of that would mean nothing if the
brand could not come through the darkness
that was lurking on top of it. It was high time
that the management came up with
something to recover and move BRAC
Chicken further towards achieving the goals
of becoming a driving force in the poultry
industry growth if Bangladesh.
The Question Mark
Marketing has always been a subtle art, and
it is an art that businessmen carry off well.
BRAC chicken was moving on in the right
track before the smallest of error is now
questioning the acceptance of the brand in
peoples minds. As time is passing by,
Sumaiya makes up her mind. She is now
filled with strong belief and confidence.
They have been serving the people for a long
time now. A small mishap may damage the
image, but it is not unrecoverable. Will BRAC
chicken be able to pave its way back into the
market c? Even if it does, how is it going to
compete with the market giants and
upcoming players in the market? The
question remains as she gets up and starts
walking towards the conference room.
 BRAC Chicken: Branding its way out towards sustainability

Exhibits

Exhibit 1 Growth of Frozen Food Market

Exhibit 2 Frozen Food Value Chain

Exhibit 3 Market Share in Frozen Food Market

 BRAC Chicken: Branding its way out towards sustainability

Exhibit 4 BRAC Chicken Billboards

 BRAC Chicken: Branding its way out towards sustainability

Teaching Notes
Learning objectives of the case:

The case has been prepared to be used as a teaching case for students learning business and
marketing. There is ample scope for the use of the theories and numerous frameworks that have
been taught as a part of the course to be applied practically by the students.

Potential Audience

The potential audience for the case are the students learning business with focus in marketing.
It is mainly aimed towards undergraduate and graduate level students in order to enable them
to make practical application of their theoretical knowledge in a real life scenario.

Teaching Strategies

The case allows the reader to take upon the role of a senior brand manager and strategize the
brands marketing to recover the damage and come up with a plan to make it sustainable. The
case analysis should contain the market analysis, SWOT analysis of the brand as well as
discussing the surface problems and the core issue. The solution should be of 2 parts: The
immediate plan of action and the long term plan for the brand to be viable.

References

Interview of Mr. Naveed Akbar, Head of BRAC Enterprises, on 13.11.2016

Market Insight: Bangladesh Frozen Food Sector, Light Castle Analytical Wing, (July 14, 2015),
http://www.lightcastlebd.com/blog/2015/07/market-insight-bangladesh-frozen-food-sector

Processed chicken market to heat up, Sohel Parvez, The Daily Star, (March 16, 2015), <
http://www.thedailystar.net/business/processed-chicken-market-heat-71871>

Social Business- The BRAC Chicken Issue, Shegufta Hasnine, e-bangladesh,com, (September
25, 2012), http://www.ebangladesh.com/3805