Rogers Chocolates Case Study

INDUSTRY ANALYSIS

Rogers Chocolates is Canada's oldest company. The company's brand image portrays tradition, enjoyable, and heartwarming chocolate experience. The premium chocolate industry has been changing and the growth of the industry has been declining, however other big name chocolate companies were moving towards this industry such as Hershey's and Cadburys. Additionally, baby boomers were emphasizing on quality and brand with their increase of buying chocolates. Premium chocolates have captured the image of roses in the consumer minds; they are mostly bought for special occasions or during holiday seasons. Premium chocolate's consumers wanted more than just "taste" from the chocolate. There is an increase in demand for organic and healthier foods, similarly for chocolates consumers wanted low fat and trans fat free chocolates. Likewise, demands for dark chocolates also increased because dark chocolates are popular for being good for the heart. Moreover, " going green" concerns roused and employees and consumers demanded for better corporate social responsibility from chocolate companies. Child labor was another concern for many consumers and since Rogers Chocolates attained their raw materials, cocoa beans, from West Africa where child labor was present, it became of high concern for some customers of Rogers Chocolates. As, the demand and industry is changing, premium chocolate companies like Rogers Chocolate will have to change their way doing business in order to stay successful in the market.

COMPETITIORS

Roger's Chocolates has many competitors in the Premium Chocolate market many of them had a higher price point then Rogers and a few were of better quality. Besides all of this Roger's still remains a strong competitor within there market but could improve their strategies in comparison to some of their competitors to remain dominate and gain more market share of the industry.

Roger's Chocolates takes a great amount of pride in the variety of packaging that they use to sell their various chocolate products. The company uses many different methods of packaging that emphasize the company's traditional old fashioned culture and heritage which was what customers loved about the company and it's products. Traditional packaging included carefully hand wrapped chocolates in pink or brown gingham or a burgundy box with hand wrapped ribbons. The company has also extended their packaging to include new gold boxes and tins, some of the tins still contained the an element of the traditional old fashion theme associated with Rogers chocolates. The tins featured old fashioned scenes and artwork such as English Roses, floral arrangements and a variety of Canadian artwork featuring artist and scenes mainly from the West Coast. Chocolate and candy bars that are sold for immediate consumption are available in a mixed variety of packaging, they can also be custom packed into boxes Although Roger's takes pride in their traditional hand wrapped packaging, some of their competitors in the premium chocolate industry have superior packaging in comparison to Roger's. Godiva is a very well established and well known premium chocolate brand in the industry, they have very glitzy packaging. Their special truffle only and seasonal collection of chocolates had a sleek more modern packaging than their original products. Godiva's packaging is perceived by customers to be very prestigious and reputable. Bernard Callebaut is another competitor whose packaging is perceived as prestigious by customers. The company offers superior packaging in gold and copper boxes and had very good seasonal displays within their stores. Callebaut also offered customized boxes that the customer can purchase at the company's store. Other competitors such as Lindt had packaging that was mid-ranged in comparison to Rogers however they did have a strong emphasis on their bars and small bags of truffles made available for immediate consumption within stores as well as producing gift boxes. Purdy has very good store displays and adequate packaging although they are not as strong as Roger's, Godiva and Bernard Callebaut.

Roger's distributed their products through four main markets retail, online, phone and mail order, wholesalers and sales from Sam's Deli a well known and established eatery which Roger's acquired in 2004. Roger's has eleven retail stores that are wholly owned by the company. The eleven stores contain attractive glass display cases, had an overall Victorian theme and had merchandise to suit the season. Each retail store was located in various tourist areas such as whistler, Granville Island, Gastown, BC Ferry locations. Their retail stores are very successful, popular and known to give customers an excellent retail experience. In 2000 Rogers won Retail Council of Canada's Innovative Retailer of the Year award in small business category. Sixty percent of Rogers online, phone and mail orders are shipped to places within Canada, thirty-five percent shipped to the United States and the remaining five percent is shipped to fifty countries internationally. The use of wholesalers for Rogers was separated into five large accounts 1) independent gift shops, 2) large retail chains, 3) tourist retailers, 4)corporate accounts (which used Roger's products as a gift for their customers or employees), 5) specialty high end food retailers. In the distribution category of products Roger's main competitors are Bernard Callebaut and Purdy. Callebaut was beginning to grow their company in similar Rogers locations such as tourist areas and downtown retail locations. However an advantage that they have over Rogers are there retail locations in malls which Rogers does not have. All together they have 32 stores located mainly across the west but they had four stores in the US and two in Ontario. As for Purdy, their company has over 50 locations with almost all of them located within shopping malls. They had many of their stores located nationally, but there biggest and most successful presence came from their locations in BC. The company has very strong sales in the corporate gift and group purchases category of the industry. The normally offer 20%-25% discounts for high volume orders. Other competitors such as Lindt distributes their chocolates broadly through the use of mass merchandisers, drug store retailers and grocery store retailers. Godiva on the other hand has a widespread distribution strategy that sells among retailers of gift items.

As a premium chocolate company Rogers prides itself on producing the highest quality of chocolate