additional funds for marketing research. Before making any decision, however, she wanted Mr. Hartman’s assessment of the situation. Source: This case was reprinted with permission from Subash C. Jain, International Marketing Management, CA: Southwestern Publishing Co., 1993.
Cases for Part I
Nature and Scope of Marketing Research
CASE I-1
Clover Valley Dairy Company
In the fall of 1978, Vince Roth, General Manager of the Clover Valley Dairy Company, was considering whether a newly developed multipack carrier for yogurt was ready for market testing and, if so, how it should be tested. Since 1930, the Clover Valley Dairy Company had sold, under the trade name Valleyview, milk, ice cream, and other milk by-products—such as yogurt, cottage cheese, butter, skim milk, buttermilk, and cream—in Camden, New Jersey. The raw milk was obtained from independent farmers in the vicinity of Camden and was processed and packaged at the Clover Valley Dairy. Clover Valley’s sales had grown steadily from 1930 until 1973 to an annual level of $3.75 million. However, between 1973 and 1977, a series of milk price wars cut the company’s sales to $3.6 million by 1977. During this time, a number of other independent dairies were forced to close. At the height of the price wars, milk prices fell to 75 cents per half-gallon. In the spring of 1977, an investigation of the milk market in Camden was conducted by the Federal Trade Commission and by Congress. Since then, prices had risen so that Clover Valley had a profit for the year to date. Clover Valley served approximately 130 grocery store accounts, which were