Red Brand Canners

Decision Sciences

The Red Brand Canners Case

©1996 by the Board of Trustees of the Leland Stanford Junior University. All rights reserved

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Problem description

Here is an interesting case that captures several points that are important in real-world model formulation. In

any real problem it is important for the manager to distinguish between those facts and data that are relevant

and those that are not. Distinguishing the two may be especially difficult because on occasion confused or

incorrect concepts will be strongly held by members of the management team. This case is designed to

reproduce such a situation. The present task will involve model formulation, solutions, analyses, critiques,

and interpretations.

On Monday, September 13, 1996, Mitchell Gordon, vice-president of operations, asked the controller, the

sales manager and the production manager to meet with him to discuss the amount of tomato products to

pack that season. The tomato crop, which had been purchased at planting, was beginning to arrive at the

cannery, and packing operations would have to be started by the following Monday. Red Brand Canners

was a medium-sized company that canned and distributed a variety of fruit and vegetable products under

private brands in the western states.

William Cooper, the controller, and Charles Myers, the sales manager, were the first to arrive in Mr. Gordon's

office. Dan Tucker, the production manager, came in a few minutes later and said that he had picked up

Produce Inspection's latest estimate of the quality of the incoming tomatoes. According to the report, about

20 percent of the crop was grade "A" quality and the remaining portion of the 3,000,000-pound crop was

grade "B".

Gordon asked Myers about the demand for tomato products for the coming year. Myers replied that for all

practical purposes they could sell all the whole canned tomatoes they could produce. The expected...