Holly Farm Case

HOLLY FARM ANALYSIS

by Alan Paschal

This holly farm case study analysis will be on the issues that Gillian faces in increasing their profitability, evaluation of Gillian's proposal to increase the number of farm visitors in 1999 by 50 per cent. (the sales forecasts, analysis and identification of the capacities and capacity constraints within the business) and finally the factors Gillian should consider when deciding to increase the number of flavours from four to ten using appendices 1 and 2 of the analysis of annual sales of ice cream from 1994 to 1998 and forecast sales of 1999, and records of farm visitors and ice cream sales in 1998.

According to appendix 1 of forecast sales of 1999, the farm shop sales increased by 48%, showing there will be a decline in retail shops sales by 15.4% in 1999. However, the total sales forecast for 1999 will increase by about 3% which is lower than the average growth trend from 1994 to 1998.The analysis also revealed a that part of the decrease in retail shop sales was due to the standard discount of 25% to allow a 33% mark-up to the normal retail price of £2.00 per litre. Although the minimum order quantity for retail shops is 100 litres, deliveries were made by Gillian in the van on Tuesdays that also requires logistics and distribution cost that did not reflect in the analysis compared to farm shop sales with retail price of £2.00 per box which gives them a much better margin than for their sales to shops and also because of the increase in paying visitors to the farm and "farm shop" only visitors. The proposed increase in the number of farm visitors in 1999 by 50% if the issues and capacity constraints are not dealt with.

The issues Gillian faces in trying to increase their profitability is enormous. Some of which were identified as, to increase the number of farm visitors in 1999 by 50 percent from 14,800 paying farm visitors in 1998 to 22,200 paying farm visitors in 1999 according to appendix 2 of records of total number of paying farm visitor in 1998. Adopting suitable aggressive marketing and promotional activities like promoting sales to coach firms or intensifying local advertising to attract more families and improve company's return on 'farm tours' assets and extra sales of ice cream to keep the factory at full capacity. Reducing the average wait or queue time , for customers trying to get into the milking parlour on Saturdays and Sundays from April to October which are commercially viable days with twice as many visitors than Monday and Friday. Another issue is that of balancing demand with capacity. The capacity constraints caused by not utilizing the room for extra mixing hours which would create more unfrozen ice cream, that the present equipment cannot safely and fully fast freeze more than 350 litres