The following information should be used when answering question one.
1 Origins and ownership
Churchill Ice Cream is a medium-sized family owned company, making and selling a range of premium ice cream
products. Its origins were in the middle years of the twentieth century, when John Churchill saw an opportunity to
supply a growing consumer demand for luxury products. John has been followed into the business by his two sons
and the Churchill family has dominated the ownership and management of the company. In 2001 there was
recognition of the need to bring in outside management expertise and John reluctantly accepted the need to relinquish
his position as chairman and chief executive of the company. Richard Smith, formerly a senior executive with one of
the major supermarket chains, was appointed as chief executive. Within one year of Richard’s appointment he had
recruited Churchill’s first sales and marketing director. Richard was consciously looking to reduce the dominance by
the Churchill family and make the company a more marketing orientated business able to meet the increased
competitive challenges of the 21st century.
Churchill’s distinctive strategy
Churchill Ice Cream is in many ways an unusual company, choosing to both manufacture its premium ice cream and
sell its products through its own stores. Specialist ice cream stores or parlours had started in the US and soon spread
to the UK. Customers can both buy and eat ice cream in the store. John Churchill saw the growing demand for such
specialist ice cream stores and created a unique store format, which quickly established the Churchill brand. Most of
these stores are owned by the company, but there are also some smaller franchised outlets. By 2005 it had 40 ice
cream stores owned by the company and a further 18 owned by franchise holders. Franchise stores typically are in
less attractive locations than their company-owned equivalents. All stores are located in and around the London area.
The logic for manufacturing its own ice cream is a strongly held belief that through sourcing its ingredients from local
farmers and suppliers it gains a significant competitive advantage. Making its own ice cream also has enabled it to
retain control over the unique recipes used in its premium ice cream product range. John Churchill summed up the
policy saying ‘We are no more expensive than the market leader but we are much better. We use real chocolate and
it’s real dairy ice cream. Half our expenditure goes on our ingredients and packaging. It’s by far our highest cost.’ Dairy
ice cream, as opposed to cheaper ice cream, uses milk, butter and cream instead of vegetable oils to blend with sugar
and flavourings. These ingredients are blended to produce a wide range of products. Churchill has also developed a
product range with no artificial additives hoping to differentiate itself from the competition.
Product innovation is a key capability in the ice cream market and 40% of industry sales are made from products less
than three years old. Churchill’s products are made at a new purpose built factory and supplied quickly and directly
to its own ice cream stores and other retail outlets. Unfortunately, detailed and timely information about product and
store performance has suffered through a delay in introducing a management information system. Consequently its
stores often faced product shortages during the peak summer months.
In 2003 Churchill became the sponsor and sole supplier to a number of high profile summer sporting events held in
London. Churchill also supplies eight million tubs of ice cream each year to London based cinemas and theatres. As
a consequence, Churchill is now an established regional brand with 90% customer recognition in the London area.
It also has major ambitions to become a national and eventually an international brand though facing significant
competition from two global chains of US owned premium ice cream stores. Their high profile moves into the UK
market was backed with expensive advertising and succeeded in expanding the demand for all premium ice creams.
The UK retail ice cream market
Ice cream is bought in two main ways: either from retail outlets such as supermarkets for later consumption at home
or on impulse for immediate consumption from a range of outlets, including ice cream stores such as Churchill’s.
Impulse sales are much more dependent on the weather and in 2003 sales of take home ice cream and impulse ice
cream were roughly equal. Total sales of ice cream in the UK reached ￡1·3 billion in 2003. Premium ice cream in
2005 accounted for 19% of the UK’s take home market, up from 15% in 2002.
Churchill itself does not use advertising. In John Churchill’s words, ‘There is no point in advertising your product if
consumers are unable to buy the product.’ Churchill has yet to achieve significant sales into the take home market.
Two major barriers exist. Firstly, global manufacturers with significant global brands dominate the industry. Secondly,
four major UK supermarket chains dominate the take home market. These supermarket chains account for over 80%
of food spending in the UK and have the power to demand that suppliers manufacture their products under the
supermarket’s own label brand. Supermarkets currently account for 41% of the sales of ice cream in the UK.
However, it is proving difficult to get the Churchill product range into the ice cream cabinets of the supermarket chains.
In John Churchill’s opinion ‘If you want to buy a tub of premium ice cream and you go to a supermarket you have a
choice of two American brands or its own label. I think there should be a British brand in there. Our prices are
competitive, at least ￡1 cheaper than our rivals and our aim is to get Churchill ice cream into every major
supermarket.’ Some limited success has been achieved with two of the smaller supermarket chains with premium ice
cream supplied under their own label brands. However, margins are very slim on these sales.
Churchill’s international strategy
Churchill, in seeking to increase its sales, has had no success in moving into foreign markets. In the 1990s it tried
both setting up its own ice cream stores abroad and acquiring specialist ice cream makers with their own ice cream
outlets. Its attempted entry into the US market was by using the established Churchill ice cream store format. Two
stores were opened in New York, but the hopes that the emphasis on classic English quality and style. and the slogan
‘tradition with taste’, would prove successful did not materialise and the stores were closed with significant losses –
each store took upwards of ￡100K to fit out.
Acquisition of two established ice cream makers, one in Germany and one in Italy also proved failures. Access to their
retail outlets and to complementary product ranges did not overcome differences in taste and customer buying
behaviour. Despite attempts to change some of the German and Italian outlets to the Churchill store format the resultswere less than impressive and the two companies were eventually sold at a combined loss of ￡5 million.
Summary
Overall, Churchill has a distinctive strategy linking the manufacturing of premium ice cream with its distribution
through the company’s own ice cream stores. This has secured them a regional reputation for a quality product. It
has had little success to date in penetrating the major supermarket chains with the Churchill brand and in moving its
distinctive ice cream store format into foreign markets. Finally, to complicate both the manufacturing and retail sides
of the Churchill business, seasonality is a real issue. Ice cream is still heavily dominated by sales in the summer
months. In fact the peak demand in summer is typically five times the demand in the middle of winter. Equally serious
is the impact of a cold summer on impulse ice cream sales. This has a number of consequences, which affect the
costs of the product and capacity usage at both manufacturing and retail levels.
Despite this, Richard Smith has set three clear strategic goals to be achieved over the next five years. Firstly, to become
the leading premium ice cream brand in the UK, secondly, to increase sales to ￡25 million and finally, to penetrate
the supermarket sector with the Churchill product range.
Required:
Richard Smith has set three clear strategic goals for Churchill’s growth and development over the next five years.
(a) Using models where appropriate, assess the advantages and disadvantages of the current strategy being
pursued by Churchill Ice Cream and its impact on performance up to 2005. (20 marks)