Synnøve Finden’s Gudbrandsdals Cheese in Spain Bachelor in International Marketing ESADE & BI Norwegian Business School 13 th of June 2012 Professor: Marta Vila Students: Ruth – Helen Bøe Nargis Høvik Anniken Børseth Ingrid Bjørbæk Table of Contents Introduction Company presentation 3 6. Micro Segments 71 Product presentation, Norwegian Brown Cheese 4 7. Analysis of Market- Product Appeal 77 Brown cheese producers 5 7.1 Solution Life Cycle 77 8. SWOT- Analysis 78 Part 1: Analytical 10 9. Strategic Problem Definition (Spd): Analysis Of Competition 80 1. Problem Area 11 9.1 Key Success Factors and Definition of Distinctive Competences 80 1.1 Limitations 12 10.Development Strategy 82 2. Research Problem 13 10.1 Choice of Competitive Strategy 82 2.1 The Industry 14 10.2 Choice of growth strategy 84 3. Theoretical Framework 15 10.2.1 Market Development Strategy 85 3.1 Porter’s Five Forces 16 10.3 Competitive Attitude 86 3.2 Kotler’s Purcahsing Prosess 21 11.Segmentation Strategy 88 3.2.1 Spaniards 21 11.1 Choice of Micro Segments 89 3.2.2 Norwegians 22 11.2 Family Life Cycle 94 4. Research Design and Method 25 12.Positioning Strategy 95 5. List of Information needed 26 12.1 Positioning Map 95 6. Primary Research 27 12.2 Positioning Strategy for Synnøve Brown Cheese 96 6.1 Overview over the qualitative research 28 13. Marketing Mix 97 6.2 Primary Research Area: Catalonia 29 13.1 Price 98 6.3 Primary Research Area: Costa Blanca 40 13.2 Promotion 99 6.3.1 Torrevieja 45 13.3 Place 102 6.3.2 Alfas del Pi/ Albir 52 13.4 Product 104 6.4 Global Conclusion 60 13.4.1 Product I 104 13.4.2 Product II 106 Part 2: Strategic 63 14. Budget 108 1. Mission 64 15. Reference List 110 2. Risk-Profitability Binomial 65 16. DOs and DON’Ts 113 3. Frame of Referance 67 17. Annex 1 114 4. Macro Segments 68 5. Conclusion Porter’s Five Forces 69 *The qualitative guides are attached in Word documents 5.1 Spanish Macro Segment 69 5.2 Norwegian Macro Segment 70 2 Company Presentation Euro Marketing • Euro Marketing is a Norwegian company that was established in1999. The company is based in Bergen, Norway • The three main fields of the company are; . Consultative services . Competence programs and seminars . Trade o Export of Norwegian food products to the US o Import of children's clothing from the US • Euro Marketing exports Norwegian products such as coffee, sardines and cheese, including the Synnøve brown cheese • Euro Marketing is focusing on export to the Scandinavian ethnic market segments in the US • They export around six shipments a year, or approximately 9 000 packages of brown cheese, to the US each year • Euro Marketing has an annual turnover of 3-4 000 000 NOK 3 Product Presentation • Brown cheese has a strong position in Norwegian traditions and culture. The cheese is popular and is an essential part of the daily diet for many Norwegians, especially families with children • There are several types of brown cheese. The most popular one, Gudbransdals cheese, was first produced in 1863 in Gudbrandsdalen, Norway. The Gudbransdals cheese is the original brown cheese • The annual production of brown cheese is approximately 12 million kilograms. Of this, 50 % is the Gudbrandsdals cheese • On average, Norwegians consume nearly 3 kilograms of brown cheese yearly • The cheese is made by a mixture of cows’ and goats’ milk. The milk sugar, or lactose, is turned into caramel, and this gives the cheese its characteristic brown color and slightly sweetened taste. • Most of the Gudbrandsdals cheese is produced for domestic consumption. However, some of the cheese is exported. In some countries, the product is adapted to the local market, and the cheese is named Norgold in Germany, and Ski Queen in UK, North America and Australia. The Gudbrandsdals cheese is sold under the same name in other Scandinavian countries • A survey done in 2004 showed that 20% of Norwegians miss brown cheese when they are on vacation. And 600,000, or 12% of Norwegians take the brown cheese with them when they go on vacation 4 Producers of Norwegian Brown Cheese Synnøve Finden • Established in 1996, Synnøve Finden is a traditional Norwegian dairy company. In 2010, the turnover was NOK 956 million • The company has a current market share of 12 % in the domestic market. This is a drop from the market share in 2009, which was at 20 %. Despite this, the Synnøve Finden brand is well known among Norwegian consumers • Synnøve Finden first introduced its yellow cheese in 1996, and the brown cheese (Gudbransdals cheese) was launched the next year. In addition to selling dairy products, Synnøve Finden also sells fruit juices and other niche products • During the 16 years Synnøve Finden has been in the market, they have had several new product innovations, and they are constantly trying to develop new products in order to compete with Tine • One of the innovations from Synnøve is the brown cheese adapted to the cheese slicer. This means that they changed the shape and size of the cheese in order to be more user-friendly • Synnøve also offers sliced cheese, which has contributed to a increase in sales • The Synnøve Gudbrandsdals cheese is currently represented in the US as well as the Scandinavian market 5 Producers of Norwegian Brown Cheese Tine SA • Tine was established in 1928, and is the largest producer, distributor and exporter of dairy products in Norway. Also, Tine is Norway's largest food producer with an annual turnover of NOK 19,3 billion for 2010 • The company is organized as a cooperative owned business, consisting of approximately 15.000 Norwegian dairy farmers. The farmers produces 1.4 billion liters of cow's milk and 19 million liters of goat's milk yearly. This milk is processed into more than 200 different products, and sold under the Tine trademark • The Tine group consists of several subsidiaries, either wholly or particularly owned. Some of these subsidiaries are located in Denmark, Sweden, the US and Great Britain • Tine has many daughter companies all over the world, which helps them to export and distribute their products easily to foreign markets • Tine has been exporting brown cheese, including the Gudbransdals cheese, to Spain since the 1970’s. Tine is exporting to multiple destinations in Spain, all which have a high concentration of Norwegian residents. This means that they are targeting all Norwegians in Spain 6 The Norwegian Butter Crisis • The Norwegian butter crisis started at the end of 2011 with a sudden shortage of butter and an inflation of the prices across markets in Norway. There was a case of panic among the consumers, and stores ran out of butter almost instantly after delivery • Tine, the largest dairy cooperative in Norway, produced about 90 percent of Norwegian butter at the time, and was blamed by dairy farmers for not informing them about higher demand and exporting too much butter despite a threatening domestic shortage • The dilemma is that the Norwegian dairy cooperative Tine has a “de facto monopoly” on the domestic market and is consciously protected from foreign competition • In reply to increasing criticism, Tine asked the government to decrease tariffs to allow the demand to be met with less expensive imports from other countries. The government responded by cutting the import duty by 80 percent until the end of March 2012 • However, according to a Tine spokesman, this solution was unlikely to result in large quantities of butter supplies becoming available until January 2012. As a result of the crisis, many wanted the state monopoly to be reformed • The structure of the dairy industry was created after World War 2. The purpose was to keep the prices at a high level to protect small farms, but according to critics, it was a “de facto monopoly”, that failed to meet consumers’ needs” • Norwegian retailers lost an estimated NOK 43 000 000 because of the butter crisis. The Progress Party demanded that Tine pay damages the retailers for the losses they faced during the crisis • In the aftermath of the crisis, Tine lost a significant amount of support among the people 7 Types of Brown Cheese From Tine The most sold brown cheese cheese in Unlike other brown cheeses, the Norway. It is represented in Costa Blanca colour of the cheese is yellow Light version of Gudbrandsdals Extra sweet and extra brown cheese Sweet goat cheese. It is represented in Costa Blanca Strong taste and colour Mild and sweet cow cheese. It is represented in Costa Blanca Sweet and caramel taste Light version of Fløtemys cheese The darkest brown cheese with strong, almost burned taste New type of brown cheese in the domestic market 8 Types of Brown Cheese From Synnøve Our product. The most sold type Mild and sweet cow milk of brown cheese in the domestic cheese product. It is exported to USA through Euro Marketing Has more goat milk than Rich taste, sweeter than Gudbrandsdals cheese Gudbrandsdals cheese The two bottom cheese are no longer in production 9 Part 1: Analytical 1 Problem Area “Is there a demand for Synnøve brown cheese in Spain?” We have chosen to focus on two different macro segments. However, due to limited time and resources, we have a restricted geographic area of research: • The Norwegian population in Costa Blanca • The Spanish consumers in Barcelona, Catalonia 11 1.1 Limitations • Due to limited time and resources, it was only possible for us to conduct research in a restricted geographical area of Spain.