Publications

October 1992 (Revised September 1996)
Case

McDonald's Corporation

By: David M. Upton and Joshua D. Margolis

McDonald's has over many years built an operating strategy based on consistency and quality through a limited product range. Competitive forces have drawn the company into a much wider variety of foods and services in order to maintain growth. Now, new competitors... View Details

Keywords: Corporate Strategy; Diversification; Problems and Challenges; Environmental Sustainability; Quality; Competitive Strategy; Growth and Development Strategy; Operations; Integration; Food and Beverage Industry; United States

November 2005 (Revised August 2007)
Case

ConAgra Foods: The Next Chapter

By: Ray A. Goldberg and Mary L. Shelman

In 2005, CEO Bruce Rohde has almost completed the integration of ConAgra Foods' collection of 90 independent operating companies into a focused, value-added firm and was beginning to think about his successor. ConAgra had become the second largest food company and No.... View Details

Keywords: Change Management; Corporate Strategy; Leading Change; Management Succession; Strategic Planning; Brands and Branding; Food; Agribusiness; Product Marketing; Management Teams; Transformation; Customer Focus and Relationships; Food and Beverage Industry; Food and Beverage Industry; United States

14 May 2018
Research & Ideas

Amazon vs. Whole Foods: When Cultures Collide

Jamie_Hall Amazon’s acquisition of Whole Foods last August was the corporate equivalent of mixing tap water with organic extra virgin olive oil. You’d be hard-pressed to find two companies with more different value propositions. Even so,... View Details

Keywords: by Michael Blanding; Food & Beverage

October 2002 (Revised June 2005)
Case

McDonald's Corporation (Abridged)

McDonald's has over many years built an operating strategy based on consistency and quality through a limited product range. Competitive forces have drawn the company into a much wider variety of foods and services to maintain growth. Now, new competitors threaten to... View Details

Keywords: Risk Management; Competition; Brands and Branding; Growth and Development Strategy; Food and Beverage Industry; Food and Beverage Industry

02 Jun 2020
Research & Ideas

Coronavirus Careers: Cloud Kitchens Are Now Serving

work, typically through online delivery companies such as Uber Eats, Postmates, Grubhub, and DoorDash. (Delivery services are not new, of course. In 2018, American consumers used third-party delivery View Details

Keywords: by Lena Ye and Geoffrey Jones; Food & Beverage

November 2022
Supplement

Arcos Dorados’ Quest for the Digitalization of Last-Mile Delivery in Colombia (B)

By: Jorge Tamayo, Jenyfeer Martinez Buitrago and Mariana Cal

In 2020, Francisco Staton, president of Arcos Dorados’ Caribbean Division, and Héctor Orozco, Managing Director of Arcos Dorados Colombia, were looking into Arcos Dorados’ options to consolidate its food delivery service in Colombia. This time the matter at hand hinged... View Details

Keywords: Transformation; Decision Making; Decision Choices and Conditions; Global Strategy; Technological Innovation; Growth and Development Strategy; Agreements and Arrangements; Negotiation Tactics; Logistics; Service Delivery; Organizational Culture; Performance Improvement; Partners and Partnerships; Strategy; Food and Beverage Industry; Latin America; South America; Colombia

December 1980 (Revised February 1998)
Case

McDonald's Corp. (Condensed)

By: W. Earl Sasser and David C. Rikert

Describes the operating system of McDonald's, the world's most successful fast food chain. The case does not have a decision focus; it is designed for use with Burger King Corp. Students are asked to compare the operating systems of these two fast food hamburger... View Details

Keywords: Service Operations; Competition; Food and Beverage Industry

June 2015 (Revised October 2015)
Case

High Liner Foods, 2015

By: John R. Wells and Galen Danskin

In 2015, Canadian-based High Liner Foods Ltd was one of North America's largest frozen fish processors with extensive shares of both the food service and retail channels in Canada, the USA and Mexico. With over C$1 billion in revenues, the company had grown four fold... View Details

Keywords: Strategic Analysis; Strategic Decision Making; Family Business; Commodities; Strategic Planning; Strategy; Competitive Strategy; Food and Beverage Industry; North America; Canada

09 Jun 2022
HBS Case

From Truck Driver to Manager: US Foods’ Novel Approach to Staff Shortages

In 2021, US Foods faced a problem that has become all too familiar: As thousands of Americans re-evaluated their work lives in the middle of the pandemic, the company—one of the largest food View Details

Keywords: by Pamela Reynolds

07 Oct 2014
First Look

First Look: October 7

founded eBay Motors and turned it into a multi-billion dollar business and also advised several successful online marketplaces such as Lyft, Wanelo, and TaskRabbit. For his first investment as partner, Rothman was particularly interested in the View Details

Keywords: Sean Silverthorne

February 2022
Case

US Foods: Driving Post-Pandemic Success?

By: David E. Bell, Olivia Hull and Amy Klopfenstein

In November 2021, US Foods CEO Pietro Satriano must decide his company’s trajectory following the COVID-19 pandemic. US Foods suffered due to business closures and social distancing during the height of the pandemic. While the situation improved following the return of... View Details

November 1997 (Revised December 2000)
Case

Corn Products International, Inc.

By: Ray A. Goldberg and Tom Clay

A firm that started in corn processing and moved up the value-added food chain decides to spin-off the original commodity part of the business. How does the new spin-off survive and how does it develop a strategy? Firms in the food system are separating out their... View Details

Keywords: Transformation; Growth and Development Strategy; Brands and Branding; Marketing Strategy; Product Development; Service Delivery; Vertical Integration; Food and Beverage Industry

January 2022 (Revised November 2023)
Case

Expanding the Culture of Learning at Kraft Heinz

By: Ashley V. Whillans and Carolyn Watson

The Kraft Heinz Company (KHC) was an American food company formed in 2015 by the merger of Kraft Foods Group, Inc and the H.J. Heinz Company. The company sold food products like Heinz Ketchup, Kraft Mac & Cheese, Kool-Aid, and Philadelphia cream cheese to supermarkets,... View Details

Keywords: Learning; Culture; Work Culture; Workplace Practices; Mergers; Mergers and Acquisitions; Competitive Advantage; Human Capital; Training; Performance Evaluation; Growth and Development; Personal Development and Career; Employee Relationship Management; Organizational Change and Adaptation; Organizational Culture; Food and Beverage Industry

12 Jul 2022
Cold Call Podcast

Can the Foodservice Distribution Industry Recover from the Pandemic?

Keywords: Re: David E. Bell; Service; Service

June 2004 (Revised September 2006)
Case

Business Intelligence Software at SYSCO

The large food service company SYSCO has decided to purchase business intelligence (BI) software, a technology intended to provide superior monitoring and analysis capabilities. Twila Day, assistant vice president of technology and applications, is in charge of the BI... View Details

Keywords: Change Management; Information Technology; Applications and Software; Decision Making; Management Systems; Food and Beverage Industry; Food and Beverage Industry

Article

Making Small Farms More Sustainable—and Profitable

By: Lino Dias, Robert S. Kaplan and Harmanpreet Singh

Smallholder farms provide a large proportion of food supply in developing economies, but 40% of these farmers live on less than U.S.$2/day and their deforestation produces environmental degradation. With a rapidly growing global population, it is imperative to improve... View Details

Keywords: Small Farms; Sustainable Agriculture; Agribusiness; Developing Countries and Economies; Environmental Sustainability

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February 2014 (Revised August 2014)
Case

The Michelin Restaurant Guide: Charting a New Course

By: Mukti Khaire, Elena Corsi and Jerome Lenhardt

Created in 1900 by the tire manufacturer Michelin, the Michelin Restaurant Guide was widely considered the international benchmark of food rating, and, by 2013, boasted paper editions in 23 countries, and had recently expanded to the United States and Asia. Paper sales... View Details