Grocery - Publications - Faculty & Research

16 May 2016
HBS Case

Food Safety Economics: The Cost of a Sick Customer

in some cases, less finished-product testing. Outsourcing food safety testing A growing number of food manufacturers, grocery stores, and restaurants are choosing to outsource some or all of their food testing—and in many cases, they are... View Details

Keywords: by Dina Gerdeman; Food & Beverage

03 Mar 2014
HBS Case

Decommoditizing the Canned Tomato

Consumers in the United States are so increasingly into fresh, local, and carbon neutral that if someone figured out how to grow a tomato that could walk itself to the grocery store, they'd be a millionaire. So why is Mutti S.p.a., a... View Details

Keywords: by Maggie Starvish; Agriculture & Agribusiness; Food & Beverage; Retail

10 Apr 2012
First Look

First Look: April 10

widely, and research shows that it's often tough to increase profits by investing abroad. A new study of the grocery retail industry reveals that with a few exceptions globalization's benefits have not accrued to retailers. Local... View Details

Keywords: Carmen Nobel

12 Apr 2004
Research & Ideas

What Great American Leaders Teach Us

the war ended, Phillips was well positioned to meet the pent-up needs of consumers. His counterpart, Clarence Saunders, who founded Piggly Wiggly, was a consummate Mold-Breaker. He fundamentally revolutionized grocery shopping by... View Details

Keywords: by Sean Silverthorne

25 Mar 2001
Research & Ideas

Who Wants to Be an Entrepreneur? [Part II]

pressed pleats? Krasnow worked at General Foods for two years, developing fast-food products for the home kitchen. Then he joined the Jewel Companies, a food retailer, first bagging groceries at a Star Market in Cambridge, and later... View Details

Keywords: by John S. Rosenberg

05 Oct 2021
Blog Post

First-Gen Voices: Eric Westphal on Tapping into the Global Alumni Network & Making a Difference Across Borders

years were spent in Brazil where his parents owned and operated a grocery store that they started from a garage and built into a successful small business. After twenty years, the business was forced to close and Westphal’s parents had to... View Details

14 Aug 2018
First Look

First Look at New Research and Ideas, August 14, 2018

allergens. Now, the new company had to turn its product into a brand and map its go-to-market strategy, including creating a compelling value proposition, choosing a path to market that was either direct-to-consumer, through grocery... View Details

Keywords: by Sean Silverthorne

02 Mar 2015
Research & Ideas

‘Retail Revolution’ Excerpt: The Scale of the Ecommerce Threat

fulfillment of basic needs, such as Consumer Product Goods and apparel basics, is growing. With customers increasingly ordering these and other products online, potential shoppers have fewer reasons to leave their homes, and the clothing store collocated with the... View Details

Keywords: Re: Rajiv Lal; Retail

02 Mar 2015
Research & Ideas

Retail Reaches a Tipping Point—Which Stores Will Survive?

of a category, that starts to create trouble. Amazon already has a significant percentage of almost every category except groceries and hardware. If ecommerce gets to 10, 15, or 20 percent of a category, your business is in real, serious... View Details

Keywords: by Sean Silverthorne; Retail

01 Sep 2014
News

Afghanistan’s Hope and Light

from the Indian state of Gujarat; he was born in Pretoria, South Africa, where his family ran a small chain of grocery stores and butcher shops. What wealth the family had built up, however, was expropriated with the rise of apartheid... View Details

Keywords: Julia Hanna

06 Mar 2018
First Look

First Look at Research and Ideas, March 6, 2018

for “ruffling some feathers” in the process. Recruited to a Fortune 500 grocery and pharmacy retailer after climbing to Associate Principal in McKinsey & Company’s retail practice, she successfully grew their high-margin yet highly... View Details

Keywords: Sean Silverthorne

26 Aug 2020
News

What the Climate Change Movement Can Learn from the Pandemic

our credit card or for users who choose not to connect a card and would prefer to answer questions instead. How do we make those estimates more accurate or how do we account for things like the fact that a grocery bill should be... View Details

01 Jun 2017
News

Life in Lockdown

to handle daily chores like picking up dry cleaning, watering plants, grocery shopping, and making their beds. Doorman morphed into Hello Alfred, which went on to win the School’s New Venture Competition in 2014 and then, later that year,... View Details

Keywords: Jennifer Myers; photography by Chris Churchill

03 Jun 2016
News

Again in a Great City

earlier, a surprisingly elegant parking structure. It took several years and complicated financing, but on June 5, 2013, Cummings watched as hundreds of Detroiters—black and white, rich and poor—gathered in front of the new grocery store.... View Details

Keywords: April White; photographed by Brian Kelly

26 Oct 2009
Lessons from the Classroom

The New Deal: Negotiauctions

discussed his thoughts on the current business environment and how deals get done with HBS Working Knowledge. Julia Hanna: Talk a little about what you mean by "negotiauctions." Guhan Subramanian: If you put aside fixed-price mechanisms, such as buying... View Details

Keywords: by Julia Hanna

21 May 2019
Blog Post

Asian Pacific American Heritage Month at HBS

born and raised in Portuguese Mozambique, where his parents opened a grocery store. My mom is Shanghainese and grew up in Hong Kong. They both came to the US for college. My grandmother never went to high school and was part of the last... View Details

01 Dec 2020
News

New Releases: Alumni and Faculty Books

Bertini (DBA 2006) and Oded Koenigsberg The MIT Press Would you rather pay for health care or for better health? For school or education? For groceries or nutrition? A car or transportation? A theater performance or entertainment? In The... View Details

Keywords: Margie Kelley

05 Feb 2013
First Look

First Look: Feb. 5

KindredHarvard Business School Case 513-052 Patrick Coveney, CEO of Greencore, one of the top producers of private label prepared foods sold through UK grocery retailers, was assessing Greencore's growth options. Growth potential was... View Details