...COMPANY NAME/WEBSITE/INDUSTRY Fresh Direct / https://www.freshdirect.com/ Retail Grocery Industry BACKGROUND/HISTORY Based out of Long Island City, Queens, FreshDirect was launched in July 2001, by Joseph Fedele and Jason Ackerman. It offers online grocery shopping and delivery service to over 300 zip codes in the Manhattan, Queens, Brooklyn, and surrounding areas. At the time of launch, there had been numerous other online grocery ventures that had ultimately met their demise. What made Fresh Direct unique was that it could offer grocery shoppers: “higher quality at lower prices.” It was able to do so because it had no retail location, which meant there was no rent to pay for retail space. In order to provide its customers with highest quality of food, FreshDirect created a state-of-the-art production center that is staffed with expert personnel. Since its existence, FreshDirect has changed CEO’s seven times, with Jason Ackerman, one of the co-founders, as its current CEO. FreshDirect currently is a privately owned company is not mandated to share any of its financials to the public. However, in an interview by Ken Bruno of Forbes with former CEO Richard Braddock, Bruno stated, “the company increased revenue in 2009 by approximately $20 million up to an estimated $250 million and in 2010 has grown its customer base in the range of 20% to 25%” (June 2010). SWOT ANALYSIS STRENGTHS Large concentration of population Does not pay rent for retail facilities Able...
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...Introduction Fresh Direct describes itself as the “new way to shop for food” on it’s about us page. As I watched more and more of the trucks make the rounds throughout New York since 2002 I thought to myself that this sounds like a pretty cool service. As a southerner who moved to New York in 1998, I used to buy in bulk and cook every meal upon arrival. At that time I was a 23-year-old grad student who would quickly realize: 1. with no family there was no need to buy in bulk and 2. my studies would win my time not cooking. I would soon eat out every single meal. When I did shop for groceries, it was in bulk for summer barbeques at specialty stores. I used specific Canal Street fishmongers for seafood. This experience in becoming a “time poor” New Yorker taught me how to survive on the services and specialty stores available. On October 10, 2008 I decided to try Fresh Direct and I’ve been a customer ever since. "After fresh and direct, the retailer's third most important consideration is convenience, critical in a market where restaurant competition is as significant as supermarket."1 At its most basic level, the company offers customers the convience of on demand fresh food for less than (or the same as) the supermarket. My first hand observations with how the company fulfills their promise are where I will start this exploration. I attempted to gain insight into the back-room activities and systems that make their offering possible through ordering, complaining, returning and...
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...FreshDirect Case Study COMPANY NAME/WEBSITE/INDUSTRY FreshDirect is an online grocer providing high quality fresh foods, popular grocery and household items at incredible prices delivered to residences and office in New York City and the metropolitan area. Their website can be accessed at www.freshdirect.com. FreshDirect tailors cuisine, perishables and dishes for its clients by means of an assembling practice known as Just-In-Time lessening waste and enhancing quality and freshness. FreshDirect is prominent for its resource usage of local agriculture offering organic, natural nourishment supplying commodities the consumer would purchase in their local supermarket. BACKGROUND/HISTORY Founded in 1999 by Jason Ackerman and Joseph Fedele, they ascertained learning from failed attempts of other online grocers. Ackerman, who worked in finance, sought out Fedele, who worked at Fairway grocery. In a Bloomberg TV interview last year, Ackerman said, “[W]e really founded on two guiding principles. First was to rethink how we get product from the farm to a customer's table in a much more efficient way which lends itself to deliver better quality products at better prices. And second, because we know so much about our customers, is to use that information to deliver a much more personalized, better experience.” [ (Goldberg, 2010) ]. The Key Executives for FreshDirect, LLC are Mr. Jason Ackerman, Co-Founder and Mr. Steve Druckman, Chief Marketing Officer. The company...
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...RISE OF THE DRAGONS (KINGS AND SORCERERS—BOOK 1) MORGAN RICE Morgan Rice Morgan Rice is the #1 bestselling and USA Today bestselling author of the epic fantasy series THE SORCERER’S RING, comprising seventeen books; of the #1 bestselling series THE VAMPIRE JOURNALS, comprising eleven books (and counting); of the #1 bestselling series THE SURVIVAL TRILOGY, a postapocalyptic thriller comprising two books (and counting); and of the new epic fantasy series KINGS AND SORCERERS. Morgan’s books are available in audio and print editions, and translations are available in over 25 languages. Morgan loves to hear from you, so please feel free to visit www.morganricebooks.com to join the email list, receive a free book, receive free giveaways, download the free app, get the latest exclusive news, connect on Facebook and Twitter, and stay in touch! Select Acclaim for Morgan Rice “A spirited fantasy that weaves elements of mystery and intrigue into its story line. A Quest of Heroes is all about the making of courage and about realizing a life purpose that leads to growth, maturity, and excellence….For those seeking meaty fantasy adventures, the protagonists, devices, and action provide a vigorous set of encounters that focus well on Thor's evolution from a dreamy child to a young adult facing impossible odds for survival….Only the beginning of what promises to be an epic young adult series.” --Midwest Book Review (D. Donovan, eBook Reviewer) “THE SORCERER’S...
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...BACKGROUND/HISTORY The company in the case study is FreshDirect. FreshDirect was founded in July 2001 by Jason Ackerman and Joseph Fedele. FreshDirect is an online base grocery store in New York that provide high quality fresh foods and grocery items at cheap price and delivers to more than 250,000 customers in the New York and New Jersey area. The FreshDirect plan to win in the market is by eliminating the middleman SWOT ANAYSIS | INTERNAL ENTERNAL | | Strengths |Opportunities | |FreshDirect have strong financial assets. |Reputed brand name and its customers are highly trusted on| | |FreshDirect products. | |Advance food technology software system. | | | |Delivery of un-perishable products along with its popular | |FreshDirect had refrigerated loaded trucks that keep |perishable products. | |their foods fresh. | | | |Slow steady growth | |Strong...
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...What actions does FreshDirect need to take in order to keep growing and increase the online grocery market share in near and distant future? Strengths • High quality products with low prices • Good revenues coupled with low overhead due to not having the costs associated with retail locations. • FreshDirect’s state of the art warehouse with 12 separate temperature zones, ensuring each piece of food it kept at its optimal temperature. • Expert staff providing excellent customer service. • Efficient supply chain with the elimination of the middle man. • Unique industry business model. • Superior website. • 5 star food quality rating system. • Extremely high standards for cleanliness, health & safety. Weaknesses • The majority sale in perishable items with very few options for un-perishables. • Constant changes in senior management. • Limited number of brands and sizes of packaged goods. • Expensive start-up costs. • The focus on only certain New York zip codes, with no market expansion strategy. • The dependence on only one main competitive advantage in the sale of perishables. • The use of multiple non-environmentally safe cardboard boxes in the packaging of delivered foods. Opportunities • Using their reputable brand name expansion of their business to other places locally and nationally. • International expansion. • Additional movement into the delivery of a variety of un-perishable items. • Environmentally safe packaging and delivery methods. • Strategic...
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...Jennifer Kunkel COMPANY NAME/WEBSITE/INDUSTRY FreshDirect / http://www.freshdirect.com/site_access/site_access.jsp / grocery industry BACKGROUND/HISTORY FreshDirect was created in July 2001 by cofounder and former chief executive officer Joseph Fedele, who was able to bring plenty of experience in New York City’s food industry to the company. Vice Chairman and Chief Financial Officer Jason Ackerman was an investment banker with Donaldson Lufkin & Jenrette, where he specialized in supermarket mergers and acquisitions and gained him exposure into the grocery industry. Fedele and Ackerman had decided to open their own chain of fresh-food stores, but decided to pursue an option that allowed them to use online shopping and central distribution to deliver their products to consumers. The idea behind the company was to take products that you typically get from a grocery store and deliver them to the doors of their customers. After several changes to CEO, Jason Ackerman is currently holding the position. (Dess, c125) SWOT ANALYSIS Strengths * Financial backing from several private sources, with a small contribution coming from the State of New York. * Outstanding customer service. * Door to door delivery. * Warehouses have multiple temperature zones to ensure freshness of different types of food. * Refrigerated trucks. Weaknesses * Only located within a certain mile radius of Manhattan, Queens, Brooklyn, Nassau County, Riverdale, Westchester, select...
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...Fresh Direct: A Rotten Deal By Tom Angotti Fresh Direct delivers food to households all over the city. But New York City’s deal to give the company land in the South Bronx and nearly $130 million in subsidies is rotten. The city’s Economic Development Corporation has brokered a deal with Fresh Direct, a company that delivers prepared food to households all over the city. The deal would allow them to move from Long Island City in Queens, where developers are anxious to get their hands on industrial land, to the Harlem River Railyards in the South Bronx, where city and state agencies are used to unloading heavy polluters. Fresh Direct would be rewarded with nearly $130 million in city and state subsidies. The city promotes the deal as a “win-win” for New York City. It is supposed to be a job generator, producing as many as 300 new jobs, possibly 1,000 by 2020. It is supposed to ease congestion and improve the environment. Fresh Direct has promised 10 electric trucks that would eliminate diesel emissions. And more busy people will have access to healthy food. On closer inspection, however, it’s a bad deal for taxpayers, South Bronx residents, food industry workers, the environment, and consumers. At a time when more people are clamoring for a healthier and more sustainable food system, Fresh Direct would deliver a barrel of bad apples. Residents in some of the city’s most fashionable neighborhoods are already complaining about Fresh Direct’s delivery trucks. They run on diesel fuel...
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...ASSIGNMENT: Please read the Fresh Direct (C 19) case analysis carefully and produce a case analysis report following the instructions that are given in the Case Analysis report document in Doc Sharing. COMPANY NAME/WEBSITE/ INDUSTRY Fresh Direct/Freshdirect.com/Food and Grocery BACKGROUND/HISTORY Cofounder and former chief executive officer Joseph Fedele was able to bring a wealth of experience in New York City’s food industry to FreshDirect. FreshDirect offers online grocery shopping and delivery service to more than 300 zip codes in Manhattan, Queens, Brooklyn, Nassau County, Riverdale, Westchester, select areas of Staten Island, New Jersey, and parts of Connecticut. Fresh Direct is a company that allows you to order your food online and get next day delivery, their moto is “Our Food is fresh, our customers are spoiled….. Order on the web today and get next-day delivery of the best food at the best price, exactly the way you want it with 100% satisfaction guaranteed.” The primary business is to allow customers to order their food online and avoid going to a grocery store they can buy anything they want online and you can have it delivered to you house. Key players would be the people who launched the business in 2001 Joseph Fedele and Jason Ackerman. Many companies have fallen online with the grocery service and they boldly stated they were the “greatest way to shop for food” this again was a bold statement in many of these chains have fallen. Company launched in...
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...COMPANY NAME/WEBSITE/INDUSTRY FreshDirect/ Long Island City, Queens New York/ Food delivery Industry. BACKGROUND/HISTORY FreshDirect offers online grocery shopping and delivery service to more than three hundred zip codes in New York. Additionally they offer pick up service at one location in Long Island. The idea behind this company is to give the customers the freshest food possible by buying it straight from the grower, and then delivery it the next day after the customer’s order is placed. They specialize in delivering over 3,000 items including seafood, fruits, vegetables, coffee, meats and cheeses, and items from the bakery. This company was launched by Joseph Fidele and Jason Ackerman in 2001. Jason Ackerman is the company’s current CEO. Since they are a privately owned company profit information isn’t readily available but it is estimated that the company increased revenue in 2009 by $20 million and estimated $250 million in 2010. http://www.forbes.com/2010/06/29/freshdirect-online-grocery-braddock-cmo-network-grocery.html “Ackerman says FreshDirect now does 25,000 orders per week. Many customers are attracted by the $50 worth of free food that comes with a first order; others by prices that can be 10 to 15 percent lower than neighborhood stores. FreshDirect says it retains about half the customers who try the service, and that the company began turning a profit this January. “We make money doing this. Period. The end,” Ackerman says. “We’ve got lots of money in our...
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...Case Study Report COMPANY NAME/WEBSITE/INDUSTRY Fresh Direct / FreshDirect.com / Online Grocery Store BACKGROUND/HISTORY Fresh Direct is an online grocery store in Long Island City, Queens New York. The company was started in 1999 by Joseph Fedele and Jason Ackerman. Joseph Fedele has been in the grocery business since 1993 and Jason Ackerman was an investment banker when they decided to create Fresh Direct. Joseph was the CEO until 2004 when Jason succeeded him, but he only stayed at this position for seven months. After going through a few more CEO's Jason moved back to the position of CEO and is currently still holding the position. [ (Fresh Direct, Our People, Leadership) ] There are several online grocery stores in the market now and Fresh Direct still ranks as one of the top nine websites. [ (Boswell) ] SWOT ANALYSIS StrengthsStrong marketing campaignLess inventory than grocery storesBetter variety of fresh foodsDelivery of order to front doorPick up from facilityCorporate DeliveryPre-prepared itemsChef prepared meals for business meetings | WeaknessesOnline Market is very competitiveLess packaged goods compared to grocery storesCost of goods higher than grocery storesLimited delivery areaNumerous parking ticketsFuel costs | OpportunitiesExpand to larger delivery marketMore technology users in the world that will use online ordering | ThreatsNational grocery store chains moving into areaNew online grocery stores in the marketTarnished reputation from paying...
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...Case Study Report Outline and Grading Guide (150 points) COMPANY NAME/WEBSITE/INDUSTRY FreshDirect, Freshdirect.com, Food and Grocery BACKGROUND/HISTORY Fresh Direct is a company that allows you to order your food online and get next day delivery, their moto is “Our Food is fresh, our customers are spoiled….. Order on the web today and get next-day delivery of the best food at the best price, exactly the way you want it with 100% satisfaction guaranteed.” The primary business is to allow customers to order their food online and avoid going to a grocery store they can buy anything they want online and you can have it delivered to you house. Key players would be the people who launched the business in 2001 Joseph Fedele and Jason Ackerman. Many companies have fallen online with the grocery service and they boldly stated they were the “greatest way to shop for food” this again was a bold statement in many of these chains have fallen. Company launched in 2001 and by 2011 you had to have a order of 30$ with a delivery fee associated with it. The company started to fall apart when the competition start to raise in the industry that is when they started offering local grown and organic but their were some fields they just couldn’t compete with. 23–30 Borden Avenue Long Island City, New York 11101 U.S.A. Telephone: (718) 928-1000 Fax: (718) 433-0648 Web site: http://www.freshdirect.com Private Company Founded: 1999 Sales: $200 million (2005 est.) NAIC: 311991 Perishable...
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...THE CHALLENGE Surviving a major crisis — an immigration audit that decimated the company’s work force — at a time when the company was hemorrhaging money and alienating customers because its basic business model was not working. THE BACKGROUND When FreshDirect was founded in 1999 — in those euphoric days before the Internet bubble burst — the idea of an online grocer in New York City seemed promising. The company would not only sell just farm-fresh food, it would sell time and convenience, too. FreshDirect started building its 300,000-square-foot headquarters and packing plant in 2000 in the Long Island City section of Queens and made its first deliveries two years later. But little went as planned. “We broke too many eggs,” said Richard S. Braddock, who would become the company’s chairman in 2005 and its chief executive in 2008. “We showed up with thawed ice cream. We bruised the produce. We delivered late. We missed boxes. We didn’t remediate your service issues.” During FreshDirect’s formative years, the only thing that kept the company alive was its ability to churn through customers. A series of incentives for first-time buyers — including a $50 discount on orders of $100 or more — kept attracting newcomers, but most of them dropped the service after their discounts ran out. Back then, according to Mr. Braddock, about 85 percent of the company’s customers placed just one or two orders before giving up on the site. Revenue was on the rise, but profits did not...
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...cleanliness, health & safety, and an informative and user-friendly website. System efficiencies include: a cost-effective operational design; no middleman; a central production and distribution location; well designed order and delivery protocols; and a policy of no slotting allowances. These system characteristics enable FreshDirect to maintain a high product quality while keeping product prices low, therefore their promise to grocery shoppers of “higher quality at lower prices.” The website offers a broad selection of products along with information about the food and how it is sold. Products can be compared on taste, price, usage and nutritional information. Custom cuts and seasonings of meat can be ordered. Delivery options include direct to the home in New York City, or office and train parking lot access in the suburbs. The online segment of the grocery industry is a small percentage of the industry total. Despite a large potential target audience, the on-line segment has been slow to catch on. FreshDirect’s competition comes from traditional brick-and-mortar grocery chains and a handful of other on-line grocers in New York City. The challenge is to compete on price while covering the cost of selecting items in the store and delivering individual grocery orders. As the online grocery market continues to define itself, FreshDirect’s challenge is to continue to innovate in product purchase, storage and distribution, and attract loyal customers while keeping costs down...
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...Embryonic Stem Cell Research Legislation and related legal issues Heidi Brannen Law 310 Professor Floyd June 1 Human embryonic stem cell research has been and will continue to be a very controversial issue in society all over the world. Many countries have recognized the importance of this research and its benefits, while others have continued to make such research illegal with no plans to change in the near future. This paper will be discussing the past, current, and hopeful future legislation in regards to embryonic stem cell research and how it could affect the future of medical advancement. Embryonic Stem Cell Research Legislation and related legal issues Research on human embryos and fetuses has been in development for decades with the first well known development being the polio vaccine which stemmed from work on cultures of human fetal kidney cells in the 1950’s. The controversy of such research is not so much in the science of the research itself, but in how the cells are obtained from unborn embryos and fetuses in their earliest stages of development. In the 1970’s, the controversy focused on research involving fetuses in utero, aimed at developing techniques such as amniocentesis and improving the understanding of conditions such as congenital heart disease, as well as on research involving tissue from aborted fetuses of the type that led to the polio vaccine. Federal funding of this research was halted until guidelines and safeguards...
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