A cracking business lesson video on my favourite product - Jaffa Cakes!

Wow - oh wow. They’ve only gone and made a video to explain how Jaffa cakes are made. Best of all - the video is packed full with little business studies nuggetts, as well as a really useful supporting article in the Telegraph!

McVitie’s produces 2,000 Jaffa Cakes a minute - which is just as well because I estimate that I could eat around 1,950 a minute if allowed. Is a Jaffa Cake a biscuit or a cake? That has been the subject of a prolonged argument between McVitie’s and the UK tax authorities - actually the answer (in my view) is that they are a sports supplement for athletes…

The video below shows the production process in action. Some great stimulus material here for topics such as flow production and quality control. As presenter Harry Wallop explains:

“The factory is strangely empty. The process is almost entirely mechanised, with just the odd quality-control worker standing by the edge of the moving line”

An added bonus for business teachers (if not for McVitie’s) is the problem the firm is facing from copycat cakes. Amazingly, the article discloses that;

“McVitie’s doesn’t own the rights to the Jaffa Cake name. Though it has been making the things for 85 years, it failed to register the name as a trademark.”

Unable to protect the right to make Jaffac Cakes, McVitie’s is now facing increasingly intense competition from the major grocery supermarkets who are selling own-label versions of the cake at a significant price discount. What options does McVitie’s have to respond to this competitive threat.