Kingsford Charcoal Case
Kingsford Charcoal Case
Kingsford Charcoal was first started in the 1920’s by the famous Henry Ford, he created an innovative idea that used wood scraps to turn into charcoal briquettes that would burn longer and hotter than normal wood, a lumberman that was also related to Ford named E.G. Kingsford helped build the first briquettes plant and help get the business started up and commercialized, not too soon after it was bought by an investment group then in 1973 it was purchased by a company called Clorox. As of June 2000 the company Kingsford had 5 plants in the United States with each of those plants exceeding costs of 20 million dollars. The briquettes were packaged into different bags according to their specialty; some were just regular briquettes while others had lighter fluid in them that made them easier to start and user friendly. With the latter product being more expensive, there products were sold in 3 different sizes, 10 pound, 20 pound, and 48 pound bags for consumer reasons. The instant light was sold in 8 pound, 15 pound and 30 pound bags. Kingsford was an integral part to the Clorox Company; it was the leading manufacturer of charcoal and also had the most revenue of all the companies that were part of Clorox. Being part of barbequing Kingsford was a seasonal company with nearly 60 percent of their purchases being between start of spring and to the start of fall, with sells dipping down after that. Kingsford made sure that there product would be in the most viewed parts of the stores that they were sold in, they were put in the end of aisles so that you didn’t have to go deep into the aisle to be reminded that you might need to get charcoal, they wanted it to catch everyone’s eyes, the reason they were able to achieve that display was because there good relationship that they had with the retailers. Dealing with a company that is very seasonal and deals with weather to predict good sales is a big weakness, if they didn’t have good weather on
Kingsford Charcoal was first started in the 1920’s by the famous Henry Ford, he created an innovative idea that used wood scraps to turn into charcoal briquettes that would burn longer and hotter than normal wood, a lumberman that was also related to Ford named E.G. Kingsford helped build the first briquettes plant and help get the business started up and commercialized, not too soon after it was bought by an investment group then in 1973 it was purchased by a company called Clorox. As of June 2000 the company Kingsford had 5 plants in the United States with each of those plants exceeding costs of 20 million dollars. The briquettes were packaged into different bags according to their specialty; some were just regular briquettes while others had lighter fluid in them that made them easier to start and user friendly. With the latter product being more expensive, there products were sold in 3 different sizes, 10 pound, 20 pound, and 48 pound bags for consumer reasons. The instant light was sold in 8 pound, 15 pound and 30 pound bags. Kingsford was an integral part to the Clorox Company; it was the leading manufacturer of charcoal and also had the most revenue of all the companies that were part of Clorox. Being part of barbequing Kingsford was a seasonal company with nearly 60 percent of their purchases being between start of spring and to the start of fall, with sells dipping down after that. Kingsford made sure that there product would be in the most viewed parts of the stores that they were sold in, they were put in the end of aisles so that you didn’t have to go deep into the aisle to be reminded that you might need to get charcoal, they wanted it to catch everyone’s eyes, the reason they were able to achieve that display was because there good relationship that they had with the retailers. Dealing with a company that is very seasonal and deals with weather to predict good sales is a big weakness, if they didn’t have good weather on