Publications

February 2001 (Revised September 2005)
Case

Howard Schultz and Starbucks Coffee Company

By: Nancy F. Koehn

Investigates the entrepreneur's strategic initiatives to develop a mass market for specialty coffee in the 1980s and 1990s. These initiatives included the development of premium products, rapid expansion of company-owned stores--each with attractive retail environments... View Details

Keywords: Entrepreneurship; Groups and Teams; Brands and Branding; Growth Management; Employee Relationship Management; Consumer Behavior; Organizational Design; Leadership Style; Customer Relationship Management; Competitive Advantage; Vertical Integration; Food and Beverage Industry

19 Apr 2023
News

A Kick Start for Latin American Startups

performance data, options that so far have not reached their full potential in Latin American countries. Another startup, Diferente, tackles food waste. According to Forbes, the region's annual loss in food... View Details

Keywords: Maureen Harmon

February 2021 (Revised July 2024)
Case

White Claw: Defending Market Share as Competition Encroaches

By: Jill Avery

By the end of 2019, two brands accounted for 84% of hard seltzer sales, a segment that had recently taken the U.S. beer market by storm, growing from $3 million in 2015 to over $2.7 billion by the start of the summer of 2020. White Claw was the dominant market leader... View Details

Keywords: Brand Management; Alcoholic Beverages; Beer/brewing Industry; Brand Positioning; Growth; Competitive Positioning; Consumer Products; Beverage Industry; Value Proposition; Marketing; Brands and Branding; Competition; Product Positioning; Competitive Strategy; Consumer Behavior; Food and Beverage Industry; Food and Beverage Industry; United States

24 Apr 2023
HBS Case

What Does It Take to Build as Much Buzz as Booze? Inside the Epic Challenge of Cannabis-Infused Drinks

Legalization turned cannabis into a multibillion-dollar industry seemingly overnight, but this hot new market has had more—and more unusual—growing pains than most. Many experts predict significant market expansion ahead as more states legalize medical and recreational... View Details

Keywords: by Jay Fitzgerald; Food & Beverage; Food & Beverage

15 Mar 2017
Blog Post

An Average Day at HBS

Italian food in the North End), and sporting events. Try to make a list of what you want to see and do in the city before school and stick to it. Socializing: use the weekend to spend some time with your new friends. Go out for meals,... View Details

27 Feb 2019
Research & Ideas

The Hidden Cost of a Product Recall

Evidence from Medical Device Firms, released in January. Bigger recalls, bigger reactions Using 13 years of US Food and Drug Administration data and a novel set of competitor classification algorithms, the team created a detailed history... View Details

Keywords: by Danielle Kost; Manufacturing; Consumer Products; Auto; Medical Devices & Supplies

Web

Climate Impact - Business & Environment

“Piva Capital is an early-stage Venture Capital firm focused on investing in hard-to-decarbonize sectors. We are backing entrepreneurs focused on the future of work, resource efficiency, circular economy, food and alternate proteins,... View Details

July 2022 (Revised August 2022)
Case

Athletic Brewing Company: Crafting the U.S. Non-Alcoholic Beer Category

By: Ayelet Israeli and Anne V. Wilson

Athletic Brewing Company (“Athletic,” for short) was founded by Bill Shufelt and John Walker in 2017. In creating Athletic, Shufelt and Walker opened the first U.S. brewery and taproom fully devoted to the production of non-alcoholic (NA) craft beer. By 2021, Athletic... View Details

Keywords: Advertising; Brands and Branding; Product Development; Product Marketing; Product Positioning; Product Launch; Product Design; Product; Competition; Marketing; Entrepreneurship; Growth Management; Cultural Entrepreneurship; Culture; Food and Beverage Industry; United States

Web

Historical Data & Sources - Business History

Data Set in Excel Banana Exports by Country FAO (Food and Agricultural Organization of the United Nations) Food and Agricultural Organization of the United Nations, Yearbook of Food and Agricultural... View Details

18 Jul 2023
Cold Call Podcast

Diversity and Inclusion at Mars Petcare: Translating Awareness into Action

Keywords: Re: Katherine B. Coffman; Food & Beverage; Food & Beverage

Profile

Rachel H Chung

Southern California is home to the best food in the country, especially Korean food. I inherited being a foodie from my dad, and even after visiting 35+ states, I still think that LA is the mecca for foodies. View Details

06 Sep 2022
Blog Post

Student Spotlight: Summer Internships in Business & Environment

Section H), Summer Internship: ICM Mosaic Fellow / Summer Associate at Pangaea Ventures Pangaea is a hard-tech focused impact investor. For Pangaea, this means investing in companies across three key themes: food and water security,... View Details

2021
Book

Management as a Calling: Leading Business, Serving Society

By: Andrew J. Hoffman

Business leaders have tremendous power to influence our society, how it operates, whether it is fair, and the extent to which it impacts the environment. And yet, we do not recognize or call out the responsibility that comes with that power. This book is meant to... View Details

Keywords: Business Education; Power and Influence; Corporate Social Responsibility and Impact; Social Issues; Leadership

28 Nov 2005
Research & Ideas

Unilever: Transformation and Tradition

as a result, but also avoiding disasters. The ice cream and other foods businesses were built patiently by the acquisition of one local firm after another, and their melding into the Unilever model. Following the National Starch... View Details

Keywords: by Geoffrey Jones; Consumer Products

June 2016 (Revised March 2017)
Case

Global Wine War 2015: New World Versus Old

By: Christopher A. Bartlett and Sarah McAra

This case contrasts the tradition-bound Old World wine industry with the market-oriented New World producers in the battle for the Chinese wine market in 2015. China’s wine consumption growth presented a large and fast-growing export target that was extremely... View Details

Web

Continuing Education - Business & Environment

opportunities across global and local food systems. The current environment presents many challenges but also new possibilities for firms that can embrace innovation, develop new strategies, deliver value, and build resilience. For more... View Details

May 1994 (Revised March 2008)
Case

Barilla SpA (A)

By: Janice H. Hammond

Barilla SpA, an Italian manufacturer that sells to its retailers largely through third-party distributors, experienced widely fluctuating demand patterns from its distributors during the late 1980s. This case describes a proposal to address the problem by implementing... View Details

Keywords: Order Taking and Fulfillment; Logistics; Supply Chain; Technology; Food and Beverage Industry; Food and Beverage Industry; Italy

June 2017
Case

Harmonie Water: Refreshing the World Naturally

By: John A. Quelch and John L. Teopaco

The marketing director of Harmonie Mineral Water—the second-best selling bottled water in the world—is using findings from two project studies to assess how to establish a global brand identity for Harmonie via television advertising. He must decide what product... View Details

Keywords: Brands and Branding; Advertising; Marketing Communications; Global Strategy; Food and Beverage Industry