23.5 million people in America live in a food desert. A food desert is a geographic area where affordable and nutritious food is difficult to obtain, usually in rural areas and low-income communities. Not being able to have easy access to grocery stores changes multiple things. Most of the time you have to buy multiple of one item to prevent running out. This causes a problem because fruits and vegetables do not stay ripe forever.
EST1 Task 1 James Duffield Western Governors University I will be evaluating the following information given from your company on its attitude toward social responsibility and giving your company recommendations as I see fit: Your company is a small local grocery store chain located in a major metropolitan area. You have closed a couple stores in high crime areas of the city. You also report the closed stores were losing money. After years or requests your company is stocking a small amount of health and organic products in all of your stores all of which are high margin items. Also, your company was asked for donations of day old products by the food bank.
347540Wallace EST 1 Task 310.2.1-05See how we can help Because Company Q is a small, local grocery store in a major metropolitan area it can at times be very over whelming. Big chain stores are putting family owned stores out of business on a constant basis. This reason, along with social responsibility taking hold of companies, brought on by consumers demanding that companies adjust their thinking from a profit-seeking standpoint to being socially and ethically understanding to all consumers in their business ventures. Recently, due to decrease, in sales Company Q had to close two stores in high crime rate areas. Those closures where due to the result of months of losses in profits from those two stores.
A monopolistic Competition market has many sellers and provides good substitutes but differentiates their products from other companies. The nature of competition in a monopolistic market focuses on marketing, special features and pricing (Colander, 2010). Kudler Fine Foods has only a few competitors in the market that offers the same products and service to its customers. This market structure has negative and positive effects. A positive effect of Kudler Fine Foods in a monopolistic market structure is that they lead in the market and can increase competition between companies and make massive profits by setting higher prices (Colander, 2010).
They seem to be a group of caring people that want help others not suffer needlessly with Celiac Disease. I really learned a lot from the group not only about the disease, but how it affects these people’s daily lives. There is nothing like learning things first hand from real people talking about a disease they have and how it affects them personally. It is much more meaningful than a textbook. I would try to find broader ways to reach the public by having gluten-free events and giving samples of gluten-free food at the Neighborhood Co-op Grocery Store.
A huge advantage that Trader Joe’s does is that they are a smaller store and limit the number of different products they carry. This makes Trader Joe’s able to sell their products at lower cost compared to their competitors. They also sell more because from the reading, it said that they sell more per square foot. A fall back on Trader Joe’s is their communication compared to other stores. I was reading an article on Food Babe, which brought up the question on if everything from Trader Joe’s is free of GMOs.
A potential opportunity that they could explore is to utilize self-checkout terminals in their locations. Self-checkout point of sale terminals could do many things to improve Kudler Fine Foods as a retail competitor. First, it would improve their customer service as many customers prefer to check themselves out rather than having a cashier. In today’s technology environment, “…systems can be tailored to better fit any retail environment and are more focused on improving customer service rather than cutting labor costs” (Murphey, 2009, p. 1) . Even though the prime focus of these systems is not necessarily to cut labor costs, often times they can improve efficiency.
This is the same case to the less fortunate who tend to eat more food, when more of it is on offer. Financially, people should seek intervention measures when confronted by adverse health conditions. Afterward, the poor may perish as they lack resources to seek medical attention from health professionals. Economic factors are the determinants of the food one consumes. The fact, that the rich will still get healthy food while the poor survive on low quality foods.
It doesn’t appear that there is many other upscale specialty food stores in the areas, Kudler would have to look in other regions. Kudler Fine Foods will need to invest more time in researching what products or ideas will make the company successful compared to other specialty food stores outside of the country. Conclusion Kudler Fine Foods has shown it can be successful. Business has been going and appears to be doing well. Marketing is the most important key to business success.
Company Q was not being socially responsible when they closed two grocery stores that were located in the same general area of the city, they did not show a commitment to their employees and the community? When they closed their doors, that meant jobs were lost in the community, this instinctively brings anger towards the food chain. Company Q should have seriously considered what these closures could do to their reputation. Through the years, Company Q was not being socially responsible when they didn’t listen to the customers about stocking healthier foods and organic products. Company Q eventually listened and brought in a limited selection of products, but the customers found them to be to expensive to purchase.