Sara lee foods essay

Sara Lee foods has some of the most famous name brands under it in the world, which are alway consistently are sold on the floor of the grocery store; sometimes filling up half a walk through open-freezer in a grocery store full of just their brand of foods.

Their products and subdivisions of the business area huge. Ball park, Jimmy Deans, and their famous pastries, and other extremely famous name brands which are purchased all the time. There were these companies before Sara Lee, then Sara Lee bought the companies out as part of its larger cooperation. They have a few segments of brands that are not as known about as the famous name brands that sound generic and unknown.

These are mainly non-food items and items such as shampoos and body wash. Sanex is a product that is hardly known that is a shampoo which is bought out by the Sara Lee company. There are several other more generic products that are not the flashy famous name brand items, but its famous items are the most drive for the company.

There is a history to these Companies; Jimmy Dean was the name of a Country singer who developed the sausage business. It was built in 1969 and still is one of the top selling sausage manufacturers in the World. Sara Lee took advantage of the monopoly of a well running brand name in the seventies and branched out making it what it is today. There is a consistency in the name brands, such as ball park, Jimmy Deans, State fair corn dogs, and many other consistently famous brands.

It is always trying to offer these products at a fair price, making overhead for the value of owning the name brand. These companies could almost be considered a monopoly that Sara Lee owns, for they are such famous names to buy foods under. They always have these items in the grocery store. Sara Lee products continually mass fill up area after area of store space, and still sell enough to need the space in the store. It is also a consistency of a good outline of a strategy of high profit margin and great value; this being because of the mass manufacturing of such well known name brands. This means they charge allot of overhead over what the product costs to make, but the product is purchased so often that it can manufacture for cheap, and sell well above production cost compared to other situations of manufacturing products of similar price of margin. There is Champion clothing which is a cheap in-expensive clothes line owned by Sara Lee. Hillshire Farm Deli is owned by Sara Lee.

These known products could be considered a Monopoly for their name value and their reliability in purchase. It has has a consistency of claiming that they use the finest ingredients for its product to ensure that the ingredients increase the value of the taste, and make it a trust worthy product. It is very often a claim that it uses the finest ingredients possible, and always makes that pledge in dealing with its front of what kind of company it is. There has been an ongoing recession within the company though, which is 123, 000, 000 lost, so then they fired 2, 000 employees to keep the balance of the profits going; not needing as many employees set an economic spin which made more demands toward the remaining employees. Sara Lee made the Kramers ‘ Wall of Shame’ list because sense 2005, it has dropped 60 percent. But there is still course for a bounce back if the economy picks up.

The wall of shame is a metaphor of a show on the news called ‘ Kramer’, that of not being a recomended stock. Brenda James took over management of the company around that time, but it is probably not true that she effected the lower turn out of prices. There is then the Sara Lee foundation.

This adds to make it as a warm hearted caring company. They organized any charities to do with the business into the title of Sara Lee foundation, which helps find volunteers and funds to help localize community efforts to help with charity improve the area. It derives from Chicago.

The Sara Lee foundation was founded in 1981. It helps areas of cities have volunteers to help kids get into extra curricular activities, and help other things with its team of volunteers and its resources. Lora Ilhardt V. Sara Lee was a major court session that gains negative attention in 1995 when an inside Lawyer working the the company(Lora Ilhardt) Got pregnant. She met all of the companies demands and helped like a normal employee. She then got pregnant. There was a set of layoffs at the company and she was one.

Then a Court debate occurred of weather or not it was because of pregnancy or because of some other reason. She had taken three months off due to child labor two other times within the company. Their argument was that she was working part time. She remained very certain it was racism based on being pregnant. Little situations like this have to keep Sara Lee on its toes to remain fair and not glitch up to protect the image of the company. Making the news with negative press has an impact on a company, making its image slandered. Sara Lee’s advertisement varies on which branch of company is advertising. Jimmy Dean used to have the man himself doing the ads until later in the 2000 era.

He then retired, probably very happy of his investment into starting his own sausage company which grew bigger than anyone could expect. When whole grain bread came out with the Sara Lee bakery corporations, it would paint the picture of a bread that was moist and good; sometimes throwing in children that get excited of eating. The same marketing is often used with ball park and other brands. This creates a feel of fresh good foods that are easy to cook that would please you and your family. If I had say in Sara Lee’s action with its company, I would make it to where you reach out to selling your items to restaurants more frequently. Restaurant wholesalers are the main hurt with what is damaging Sara Lee’s place in the market.

There is then the unemployed, which go for generic brands and sometimes make a point to skip over Major brand names which are Sara Lee’s food titles. They should break out in Restaurant foods, and generic foods. Maybe with the extention of their company that is not that known of name brands, sell out because they are not that known of stores. Try and make the clothing line Champion be in more K-mart type stores; giving a better deal. Try to at least neutralize the competition in other market areas that effect the cost of stock and the money made in the company so they do not financially get an upper hand on them and financially have more resources to work on more advanced, bigger projects of expansion effected less by the other high end companies financial strategies. Maybe have an advertising campaign that is effective with ritually purchased items such as sliced bread, to train peoples routine to buying Sara Lee, then having coupons on them for other Sara Lee products so they try them and like them.

Sara Lee is far from defeated in the market place. They had some downs recently as they had ups before and now, but they can still bounce back into the game. The ownership of their famous brands of products are a brilliant opportunity provides a brilliant opportunity to have original innovative ways of competing. They just need to financially bounce back and use the power they have over some of the most famous names of foods as an angle. They then will increase stock holders trust and make it back into the high end of the economic scene.