NoBull Burger Case Solution And Analysis, HBR Case Study Solution & Analysis of Harvard Case Studies

Introduction

NoBull Burger (NoBull) is a new Charlottesville based vegetarian burger producer. The business was facing number of problems such as marketing, distribution and cash flows issues. The major issue was its sales were rising at a rapid space, and NoBull was not sure if the current production level will be able to cater the demand. NoBull needed to improve its operations to identify potential improvement to the current operation. Therefore, some analysis needs to be done in order to help NoBull’s goal to expand nationwide.

NoBull target customers were a mix of vegetarians, health conscious consumers and people who were looking for a tasty burger not made of meat. In other words, it competed in the meat substitute category. Major players in vegetarian burger market were Garden burger, Morningstar Farms and Coca Burger had 88% of the market share. Remaining 12% of sales came from the small players in vegetarian burger business. NoBull burger had a major advantage of its burger as compared to other market players as it was made by using homemade process. Initially, Crissanne, the owner of NoBull burger and her daughter sold burgers through Charlottesville City Market and few local health food store and restaurants. Also, the demand for NoBull in Charlottesville market expanded, and it expanded to their reach to nearby cities. With huge promotional offerings, it won over the new locales and within few months’ word spread, and its demand increased drastically in Richmond and Washington DC. Since 2011, NoBull experienced huge growth with sales increasing 65% per quarter. As the company is getting calls from investors interested in finance, which means the company is growing. Its goal was to take NoBull Burger nationwide, given high demand and positive customer feedback; there was opportunity to do so.

Problem statement

The business was facing number of problems such marketing, distribution and cash flows issues. The major issue was its sales were rising at a rapid space, and NoBull was not sure if current production level will be able to cater the demand. NoBull needed to improve its operations to identify potential improvement to the current operation needed. Therefore, some analysis is needed in order to help NoBull’s goal to expand nationwide

NoBull had too much capital tied up and minimal cash in hand as it hesitated to take a step without understanding limits of their current operations.

Operation process

It consists of four basic steps cooking lentils, cooking additional ingredients, creating burger mix and cooking burger and packaging and labeling the burgers.

It had one stove and one grill. Currently, it made only two varieties, original and mushroom. According to the analysis, the production process which Raymond chose was to focus on mushroom burger. Each batch consists of 80 burgers. Batch size is determined by grill space and pot sizes, as well as concerns about impact are greater in the quantity of the burgers per batch, as they could have been on the quality. One pot of lentils was used per batch of 80 burgers and a pot took around 45 minutes to cook. Up to four pots of lentils are cooked simultaneously on current stovetop. One pot of mushroom and one pot of onion required 80 mushroom burgers each. Each pot takes around 7 minutes to cut and prepare for cooking; also both pots are placed on the stove at the same time. Mushroom required 8 minutes and onion requires 12 minutes to cook. There was only space for two pots on the stovetop to be cooked at the same time. The ingredient was mixed together for 5 minutes. Grilling process required about 25 minutes per batch, this included time to mold each burger and place it on the grill. Vacuum sealer took 10 minutes per batch of 80 burgers to operate and required 5 minutes of preparation time to set up before each batch. Labeling process was manual and required 7 minutes per batch.

NoBull currently employs two cooks, five days per week for 5 hours per day. Cooks were paid $12 per hour. Raymonds assumed four packs of burgers were sold for $6 and the cost NoBull was $4.5. Out of that cost, $2.5 was for raw material and $2 for labor, rent, and other overhead costs.

NoBull sold four packs of burgers to multiple channels including Charlottesville City Market, Charlottesville’s Wholefood Market, Bodo’s Bagels and other local restaurants. Each had different cost and discounts associated with them, and most common channels were wholesale and Charlottesville City market...........................

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