Southland Baking Company Case Analysis

Southland Baking Company Case Analysis 

Southland Baking Company need to prioritize their stakeholders and their competing interests. The company has several stakeholders with different interests hence making it quite challenging to align. The study will present the different responsibilities the company hold for each of its stakeholders and will also respond to the specific actions the company will take to ensure that they produce healthy products to their target market. Explanation 

The company’s key stakeholders include its customers, consumer-activists groups, litigants, the government, the food and beverage industry, investors/shareholders, and its employees. The company has a responsibility to satisfy its customers by delivering what it promises and being honest in all its operations. First, Southland Baking Company need to produce products that are healthy for kids’ consumption. It has a responsibility of coming up with healthy ingredients that will reduce the rate of obesity and bring more flavor. 

Secondly, the company has a responsibility to the consumer activists’ groups too. One of the responsibilities is to ensure that they provide safe and healthy products for the consumers to enable these groups achieve their targets. The litigants include the attorneys and the company has a responsibility to answer to all the cases to the best of their knowledge. They should give explanations of all the ingredients they are using on their cakes that led to the client being obese. The company also operates in an industry where the rate of competition is high. It has a responsibility of producing products that are fat-free to ensure that the industry does not lose its clients. It should do this by working closely with nutrition experts to ensure that the company produces healthy products that are accepted within the industry. 

Thirdly, Southland has a responsibility to the government of adhering to the enacted laws. It is done through ensuring that they comply with the Food Standards Code. It also has a responsibility to carry out their business operations in the interest of its shareholders and investors. The shareholders’ main interest is to create wealth and therefore the company should ensure that they maximize wealth and not profits to avoid conflicts of interests. 

Lastly, the company has a responsibility of empowering all their employees to adhere to food safety standards. They need to do this by training their employees on all the ingredients they need to use when baking to ensure that customers’ health concerns are well taken care of. They also have a responsibility of treating their employees fairly and pay them on time to ensure they satisfy the consumers’ demands. 

Response 

There are several actions that the company can take to ensure that it corrects its product failures. Currently the company is facing so many charges due to the production of unhealthy products that has led to one of its client being fat. To rectify this, the company need to demand for natural ingredients. The company need to understand that consumer awareness is on the rise and this has made the consumers perception towards food consumption change. Therefore, they need to use natural ingredients in their products. The company need to implement fats that are not hydrogenated to prevent the rate at which consumers’ ‘bad’ cholesterol are raised while ‘good’ ones are lowered hence leading to obesity. Some of the fats that should be used include palm oil that is free from hydrogenation despite the cost. These actions can be implemented by cutting costs in other areas like laying off some employees and reducing the rate of production to ensure the company does not go into bankruptcy. 

Secondly, the company need to give a detailed bakery ingredient intelligence. Today, consumers are more interested on the origins of products they purchase. Most consumers prefer knowing everything about the products they consume and when they feel less information is provided they tend to switch to other brands. To avoid this, the company need to take an action of providing ingredient transparency that includes the source and the components. It can be included in the product labels or the company website for every target consumer to see. 

Thirdly, the company need to address some of the consumer concerns such as producing products that have high fat content. Clearly what consumers want to avoid is to be involved in the consumption of products that are rich in artificial flavors, preservatives, and colors because they are not healthy. The company need to come up with natural products by incorporating honey instead of sugar. Honey just like any natural ingredients is said to be healthier than standard sugar because it contains magnesium and potassium. Standard sugar when consumed in excess changes one’s hormones and biochemistry of the body hence leading to weight gain. The company therefore should advocate towards health by using ingredients that are healthy to the consumers.  

In addition to this, the company also need to provide clear labels on their products. It helps the consumers in knowing what the products are made of. It is also a key selling point because modern consumers love being informed. For a company to grow, the consumers must be happy and satisfied with every product they are consuming and therefore the company can achieve this by coming up with packaging techniques that informs the client every ingredient detail. One way of doing this is through listing all the ingredients and additional information such as the origin of the ingredients and both the manufactured and expiry dates of the products. 

Lastly, the company need to train their employees on the benefits of producing healthy products to their target customers. The company targets kids and therefore it is very crucial to produce products that are low in cholesterol to avoid having obese children. The employees should be tasked with responsibilities of ensuring that the ingredients they are using are natural and trans-fat free. One way of doing this is through replacing all the hydrogenated fats with palm oils that are not hydrogenated to raise the level of good cholesterol in the kids and lower the ‘bad’ cholesterol in them. It would work by reducing the fat content hence making the kids not to be fat but healthy.  The employees should also be informed that standard sugar is not healthy for the kids by bringing honey as a substitute.