Export or Not?  Cheesemaker in a Pickle

A year or so old, but still useful nonetheless. I came across this neat case study whilst reading through our OCR Unit 293 GCSE Business Studies toolkit for 2011, and the article is perfect for that exam!

Shepherds Purse Cheeses is a niche food producer that was set up as a classic diversification strategy by a Yorkshire farm and it has clearly been a success, with the product range of cheese being expanded. The owners face a challenge though. The business has become quite reliant on sales of cheese to the major supermarket retailers and is tempted to expand into the (potentially) more lucrative US market. That poses significant logistical issues for a product with a relatively short shelf-life. Should they go ahead? The business owners explain the potential opportunity and difficulties, before getting some interesting advice from the business advisers reading the case. Excellent evaluative comments that students can learn much from…