Publications

November 2023 (Revised March 2024)
Case

Infarm: Betting the (Indoor) Farm on Food Security

By: Elie Ofek

In the summer of 2023, the co-founders of Infarm, a controlled environment agriculture (CEA) company, were contemplating a major pivot going forward. While Infarm had successfully shown it could grow over 75 products—mainly herbs, leafy greens and mushrooms—in modular... View Details

Keywords: Plant-Based Agribusiness; Business Model; Market Entry and Exit; Science-Based Business; Business Strategy; Transition; Agriculture and Agribusiness Industry; Europe; North America; Toronto; Northeastern United States

18 Mar 2008
Working Paper Summaries

Modeling Expert Opinions on Food Healthiness: A Nutrition Metric

Keywords: by Jolie Mae Martin, John Leonard Beshears, Katherine Lyford Milkman, Max H. Bazerman & Lisa Sutherland; Retail

5 Sep 2013
Conference Presentation

The Color of Taste: Selling Food in Clear Packages in the Early-Twentieth-Century United States

By: Ai Hisano

This paper examines the role of color in the marketing and retailing of food products by focusing on the increasingly popular presentation of food in clear packages in the early-twentieth-century United States. In the 1910s, a candy company began using cellophane to... View Details

Keywords: Food; Product Marketing; Food and Beverage Industry

2012
Working Paper

The Effect of Supply Chain Complementarities on Local Food

By: Baris Ata, Deishin Lee and Mustafa H. Tongarlak

We study the operational tradeoffs of a retailer and farmers in a fresh produce supply chain to determine the equilibrium supply chain structure. These operational tradeoffs arise as a result of the geographic constraints posed by the availability of arable land and... View Details

Keywords: Geographic Location; Plant-Based Agribusiness; Food; Supply Chain; Agriculture and Agribusiness Industry

November 2008
Supplement

Whole Foods Acquires Wild Oats (B)

Keywords: Communication Technology; Problems and Challenges; Acquisition; Management Teams; Retail Industry; United States

November 2008 (Revised August 2010)
Case

Whole Foods Acquires Wild Oats (A)

Examines the implications of Whole Foods' CEO's anonymous message board postings including its potential impact on the company's proposed merger with Wild Oats. View Details

Keywords: Forms of Communication; Acquisition; Communication Strategy; Retail Industry; Retail Industry

December 2022
Case

The Magic of Marks & Spencer Food

By: David E. Bell, Natalie Kindred and Damien McLoughlin

Keywords: Brands and Branding; Food; Consumer Behavior; Product Development; Competition; Price; Inflation and Deflation; Trends; Growth and Development; Strategy; Retail Industry; Retail Industry; Retail Industry; United Kingdom

October 2012 (Revised May 2014)
Case

J Sainsbury Plc, Road to Recovery

By: John R. Wells and Galen Danskin

In 2012, J Sainsbury Plc (Sainsbury's), the number three supermarket chain in the UK with £22.3 billion in sales, appeared to have put the troubles of the past behind it. For over 70 years, Sainsbury's had been the UK's largest grocer, but Tesco had overtaken it in... View Details

Keywords: United Kingdom; Retailing; Food; Tesco; Sainsbury; Strategy; Competitive Strategy; Global Strategy; Retail Industry; United Kingdom

23 Sep 2021
News

How Bubble Is Building a Marketplace Focused on Health Foods

December 2011 (Revised February 2012)
Case

Doug Rauch: Solving the American Food Paradox

By: Jose B. Alvarez and Ryan Johnson

Keywords: Food; Policy; Social Issues; Business Model; Strategy; Food and Beverage Industry; Food and Beverage Industry; United States

2016
Case

Advanced Leadership Pathways: Doug Rauch and the Daily Table

By: Rosabeth M. Kanter, Peter Zimmerman and Penelope Rossano

Former Trader Joe's President Doug Rauch developed an innovative idea to address the challenge of food insecurity, food waste, and nutrition. His concept was a new retail grocery model, offering nutritious affordable food to a food insecure population in the inner city... View Details

Keywords: Food Insecurity; Grocery; Social Entrepreneurship; Food; Health; Nonprofit Organizations; Boston

May 1986
Case

U.S. Retail Coffee Market (A), Software Case

By: Benson P. Shapiro

Keywords: Food and Beverage Industry; United States

01 Oct 1996
News

Uhlmann Award Winners Focus on French Retailer

(Belarus), all members of the MBA Class of 1996 and students in Professor Ray A. Goldberg's Agribusiness Management Research elective, conducted a study of Carrefour, the French mass-market food retailing... View Details

26 Jun 2017
Research & Ideas

How Cellophane Changed the Way We Shop for Food

marketed heavily toward women. “There was a notion among retailers that women were the primary shoppers,” says Hisano, whose upcoming book about food coloring focuses a great deal on how View Details

Keywords: by Carmen Nobel; Food & Beverage; Food & Beverage; Food & Beverage

01 Jun 2020
What Do You Think?

Will Challenged Amazon Tweak Its Retail Model Post-Pandemic?

establish new policies for treating Prime members differentially in the next distribution crisis? Will we see Amazon go after its retail competitors by increasing its retail store network beyond Whole View Details

Keywords: by James Heskett; Retail

04 Mar 2013
News

Young entrepreneurs sell Pushpins app to retail giant

Keywords: Food and Beverage Stores; Food and Beverage Stores; Food and Beverage Stores; Food and Beverage Stores; Food and Beverage Stores; Food and Beverage Stores

January 2006 (Revised August 2008)
Case

Vivaldi Food Concepts--The Start-up of an Asian Venture (A)

Joel Silverstein needs to raise an additional $1.5 million from private investors to round out the equity financing for his new Quick Service Restaurant venture in China, Korea, and Japan. How should he pitch the opportunity? What should be the terms? View Details

Keywords: Venture Capital; Private Equity; Business Startups; Retail Industry; Retail Industry; Japan; China; South Korea

Article

National Image as a Competitive Disadvantage: The Case of the New Zealand Organic Food Industry

By: Geoffrey Jones and Simon Mowatt

This article examines why organic agriculture and food consumption developed more strongly in some countries than others between the 1970s and the 2000s. The focus is the limited growth of the New Zealand organic sector, which contrasts with countries such as Denmark,... View Details

Keywords: Industrial Organization; Chinitz; Agglomeration; Clusters; Cities; Mines; Political Economy; FDI; Agribusiness Industry; Agriculture; Agribusiness; Entrepreneurship; Business History; Agriculture and Agribusiness Industry; Food and Beverage Industry; Retail Industry; New Zealand; Denmark

2012
Working Paper

Entrepreneurship in the Natural Food and Beauty Categories Before 2000: Global Visions and Local Expressions

By: Geoffrey Jones

This working paper examines the creation of the global natural food and beauty categories before 2000. This is shown to have been a lengthy process of new category creation involving the exercise of entrepreneurial imagination. Pioneering entrepreneurs faced little... View Details

Keywords: Marketing; Consumer Goods; Entrepreneurs; Environment; Food; Globalization; Business History; Agribusiness; Food and Beverage Industry; Food and Beverage Industry; Food and Beverage Industry; Food and Beverage Industry; Asia; Europe; Latin America; Middle East; North and Central America