Growth at Hubbard's Foods?
ABSTRACT Dick Hubbard is the founder of Hubbard's Foods Limited. The company is a cereal manufacturer located in Mangere, Auckland. This case highlights the entrepreneurial flair that Dick has, as well as his stance on social responsibility. Hubbard's has grown from a micro-business into a large business with 120 staff, while maintaining a family based culture. It is this question of whether the business should grow further that is the focus of the case. INTRODUCTION Dick Hubbard paused for a minute from the notes he was writing for his company newsletter to reflect on the recent changes he had initiated in the company. He thought back to the early days of the business, when he did everything in the company single-handedly, including making the breakfast cereals. He looked out into the company car park and saw that it was almost full. He suddenly realised he was responsible for the livelihoods of many people other than himself. Should he take the next step and expand the company further? Dick contemplated the various scenarios and considered what they would mean for his business... BACKGROUND Hubbard's produce a range of 23 breakfast cereals that are targeted towards the mid-high price ranges in the cereal market. A recent extension to the product range was an organic muesli that is in the very high price range. Hubbard's cereals are distinctive due to their use of New Zealand and tropical fruits and using fruit flavouring to bake the cereals in. Products Hubbard's products are aimed at both the high price range and low end of the cereal market. The high end products have such innovative names as "Berry Berry Nice" and "Bugs 'n Mud" (refer to Figure 1 opposite for a description of two popular products in the range and their ingredients). While the main output from the operation is high quality cereals under the Hubbard's brand, the company also manufactures some product lines for a range of supermarket private labels. These private labels are typically at the lower end of the price range for cereal, such as rice puffs and cornflakes. Demand for breakfast cereal products has a slight seasonal variation. In summer months, consumption is approximately 10% higher than in winter months. The breakfast cereal industry has been undergoing rapid change in the past two or three years, including an increase in the mueslistyle cereals that Hubbard's popularized and an increase supermarket own brands. In addition, there had been huge growth in cereal bars, muesli bars, and breakfast drinks (Hubbard's does not produce any of these). Exact growth figures are not available as the cereal industry is highly competitive. In 2000-2001, Hubbard's exported 14.4% of its production, mainly to Australia, but a small amount was exported to the United Kingdom, Singapore and Hong Kong. In this respect, the company is potentially vulnerable to the fluctuating New Zealand dollar. Financial information for the company is shown in Figure 2, opposite. Competitors In 2001, Hubbard's had an 18.5% share of the cereal market in New Zealand, which makes them the third largest player in the market (exact market share for the competitors is not known). There are three strong direct competitors to Hubbard's in the New Zealand market - Sanatarium, Uncle Toby's and Kelloggs. Sanitarium is a New Zealand owned company that is located in a nearby suburb of Auckland. If either Sanatarium or Hubbard's runs out of an ingredient, the other will supply it if they have it available. A Seventh Day Adventist baker, whose philosophies were strong on healthy living and vegetarianism, started Sanatarium Health Foods over 100 years ago. Sanatarium continues to market their cereals using these philosophies, and has quite a strong focus on sponsoring events and charities, as well as promoting healthy living. Sanatarium's main breakfast cereal products are Weetbix and Cornflakes, and they have entered the cereal bar market as well as the breakfast drink market. …
Design within Sustainability: Identifying processes and approaches that build capacity and capability for incorporating sustainability within the teaching and practice of design
This thesis is concerned with semantics associated with ‘sustainable design’. In particular, I focus on how differences in conceptions of design and sustainability can affect the teaching and practice of design. Considering that designers shape and make the artificial for consumption and disposal, how can an exhaustive use of resources and excessive production of waste be sustainable? Consequently, I interviewed some leading global researchers, educators and practitioners in sustainable design, specifically asking what sustainable design means, how they teach and implement it, and why. New ways of thinking about sustainability and design have overtaken the reductionist approach affiliated with the environmental movements of the 1970s, and now include concepts, such as systems thinking, transdisciplinary design dialogues and citizens as co-designers. My intention shifted to discover if these progressive international understandings, approaches and rationale were reflected in design education and practice in Aotearoa/New Zealand. Using a qualitative and pragmatic grounded theory approach and constant comparative analysis methodology, I sought strategies of how sustainable designers overcame obstacles to the inclusion of sustainability in their disciplines. I propose that through more global ways of thinking about design can come broader ways of thinking about sustainability. I build on many current conceptions of sustainability education and sustainable design theories to reflect on how designers and educators are some of the most active contributors to social, environmental and economic change. Moreover, I suggest that a failure to recognise the complexities of sustainability can lead to single-issue ways of thinking that can restrict progress towards designing more sustainable futures. In this way, barriers such as a lack of understanding, confidence, importance and support emerge. In contrast, for designers (teachers and practitioners) and educators (from a wide variety of disciplines), recognition of shared common elements between sustainability and design, and sustainability and education can augment current practices and lead to opportunities for engaging in a wide variety of ways towards designing scenarios for more sustainable futures.
Intentional poisoning cases of animals with anticholinesterase pesticide-carbofuran in Sri Lanka.
Carbofuran is a broad spectrum insecticide and nematicide which inhibits acetyl cholinesterase. Several intentional poisoning cases of animals and birds including crows, dogs, cow, and elephant, using carbofuran were reported in Sri Lanka. Qualitative analysis of carbofuran in biological specimens was carried out using T.L.C and GC-MS. The quantitative analysis was carried out by HPLC using Zorbax Eclips XDB-C18 (150 x 4.6 mm I.D x 5 microm particle size) column with acetonitrile: water 25:75 v/v mobile phase and UV detection at 210 nm. The liquid-liquid extraction with chloroform was reproducible and sensitive. The procedure was validated in terms of linearity (0.996<r<0.999) for concentrations ranging from 1 to 200 microg/ml, repeatability (RSD 4.4% at 100 microg/ml, n=10) extraction recovery (91.7% at 100 microg/g, 77.3% at 20 microg/g), limit of detection (S/N ratio=3, 0.7 microg/ml) and limit of quantification (S/N ratio=10, 2.4 microg/ml). The method was found satisfactory and successfully applied in fatal cases of animals and birds due to carbofuran poisoning. The fatal carbofuran levels detected were in the range of 42-910 microg/g in crow's gizzard and contents, 50-800 microg/g in dog's stomach contents, 13-20 microg/g in dog's liver, 0.9 microg/g in cow's stomach and contents, 35 microg/g in elephant's stomach and contents.