Kudler Fine Foods Unfinished

“Introduction

Kudler Fine Foods (KFF) has plans to begin offering organic produce to their customers. This will be a bold move and first major change in product offerings since KFF began operations in 1998.

Kudler will need to move slowly and consider all angles in how this will affect the current operations. KFF will need to consider how this will impact their business processes and supply chain. Due to the perishable nature of Organic Produce KFF will need to and what types of quality control tools they wish to put into place and what performance standards they want to hold themselves and their suppliers too.

Operational Changes

KFF currently has its department managers order all stock and supplies and the managers are also responsible for determining a stock age level that will result in no less than 5% out of stock condition. KFF wants to limit its out of stock instances to 2-3 times per year on any one item.

The introduction of organic is not new to KFF, according to their Strategic Plan KFF already have committed to buying organic produce whenever possible from local farmers.(Appolo, 2008) However KFF plans to expand their offerings to exclusively organic fruit and produce.

KFF can expect changes in their operations as a result of this change. Organic produce does not have as long a shelf life as no organic produce does. Organic fruit tends to not be as appealing to the eye as non organic Fruits and vegetables do. Although “organic produce stays fresh just as long as conventional produce when it is properly stored” (Nagurny, 1994) Organic produce will require more refrigerated display cases than KFF currently has. KFF can easily deal with the refrigeration issues by purchasing more cases. To deal with the appearance issues KFF will need to continually educate its already discriminating customer base on what to look for in Organic Produce. Additionally, KFF will have to partner with its suppliers to provide the best looking freshest produce available....