Bernard Matthews Farms

Bernard Matthews farms Bernard Matthews farms is the largest turkey producer in the UK. The business has grown substantially since its relatively humble origins in 1950, when entrepreneur Bernard Matthews bought 20 turkey eggs and a second-hand incubator. Twelve turkeys successfully hatched from this initial batch and, before long, the young entrepreneur was able to give up his insurance job and concentrate full-time on rearing turkeys. Today, Bernard Matthews farms rears over seven million turkeys every year. Thirteen million UK households buy a Bernard Matthews farms branded product each year. Despite the size of its operations, the company remains close to its roots in East Anglia, with its farms located across Norfolk, Suffolk and Lincolnshire. Bernard Matthews’ vision is ‘to make turkey the preferred choice of protein for every day and every occasion’. The company’s product line featured affordable, tasty and convenient food choices. Bernard Matthews farms operates in a competitive and fast-changing environment. Consumers are faced with a huge choice of foods to suit different lifestyles, diets, and tastes. However, in recent years, buying patterns have changed as consumers have become more concerned about healthy eating, food safety, and animal welfare. Chance events can have a significant impact on a food business. For example, celebrity chef Jamie Oliver’s high-profile campaign in 2005 to improve the quality of school meals identified foods such as Bernard Matthews farms’ Turkey Twizzlers as being unhealthy. In 2007, there was an outbreak of bird flu at a Bernard Matthews farm in Suffolk. At that time, the media also discovered that the company imported some of its turkey from abroad. The press published stories suggesting that the imports could have been directly related to the outbreak, a theory that was never proven. Initially, Bernard Matthews farms did not speak up and defend its product range against Oliver’s accusations. This resulted in adverse press coverage and the company lost credibility with the media. When bird flu hit, relations with the media were at an all-time low. The companys immediate reaction to the crisis was to focus on eliminating the disease, which it did successfully. Communications came low on the list of priorities. This meant that the resulting information vacuum was soon filled with damaging and often inaccurate news reports. Another issue surfaced during this time period. Two of the company’s workers were convicted of animal cruelty in 2006, having been secretly filmed hitting turkeys with a pole. Others had been filmed playing ‘catch’ with turkeys. Bernard Matthews farms’ spokesperson initially gave â€Å"no comment†, saying he hadn’t seen the video, although he had been shown pictures of the abuse. The company nonetheless claimed it was ‘committed to the â€Å"highest standards† of animal welfare’. The employees defended themselves by saying that they were influenced by the â€Å"culture† at the plant. Yet, in June 2007, employees were again caught and filmed in acts of animal cruelty – this time kicking turkeys. When the company realized the extent of the damage and finally opened up to the press it was too little, too late, as all trust had been lost. As a result, Bernard Matthews farms’ sales in the UK fell by 35% and the company went into a loss position for the first time.

Can global governance avert economic crises Term Paper

Can global governance avert economic crises - Term Paper Example terized by prolonged periods of increased unemployment and inflation, reduced international trade and investment, a loss of foreign reserves and recession. Various types of crises can arise in the global economy. An example of the crises is the financial crisis that is usually observed globally. A Financial crisis according to Portes (1998) is a situation where the financial markets are disturbed in such a manner that the markets fail to allocate the capital. As a result, the investment and the financial intermediation are gravely affected. A ‘financial crisis is’ a term that is usually broadly used for many types of crises. According to Portes (1998) a financial crisis is used to refer to exchange rate problems, bankruptcy, and debt defaults. Some of the examples of the financial crises are explained below. According to Jahjah (2000), defaults refer to a situation where any individual or a country fails to comply with the terms and conditions of an agreement and also is not able to pay the required debts at the already proposed time. An example of a default crisis would be the sub prime crisis that occurred in the US in 2008 where the borrowers were provided with the loans that could not be sold in the prime market according to Whalen (2008). The term ‘sub prime’ was used for the ‘sub prime’ crisis because it actually defines the status of the borrower. This means that during the crises that borrowers who had poor credit history were granted loans. As mentioned above, these loans could not be sold out to anyone in the prime markets. There was a sub prime crisis because the borrowers and lenders both were at risk. The reasons were that the sub prime lending according to Whalen (2008) meant that the borrowers and the lenders had to face markets with higher interest rates, a high rate of default and poor credit history. In the US according to Shankar (2008), the sub prime lending increased from 9% in 1996 to 21% in 2004. Some analysts argue that the

Summary Assignment Example | Topics and Well Written Essays - 500 words

Summary - Assignment Example The authors work with Elizabeth Brainerd is based on two hypotheses. Firstly, competitive industries do not have discrimination, so in case of an exogenous shock (increased trade) the effect of discrimination is negligible. Secondly, in less competitive industries, scope of discrimination is more, so in case of the same exogenous shock narrowing the gender wage gap would be considerable. Since theoretically, the wage differential in competitive industries is nil, by providing for increased trade, the authors could compute the gender wage gap in concentrated industries. The survey covering the period 1977-94 used data from Current Population Survey. The population comprised of individuals aged 18 to 64 and working as full time. First log wage of all individuals was regressed on education, age, agesqaured and nonwhite dummy variable. Then the residual gender wage gap was computed from difference in average residual wages for male and female at industry level. The industry level results were matched to trade level results, with trade measured as import shares. The findings show that an increase in import share leads to reduction in gender wage gap in concentrated industries. However overall increase in trade have a negative impact on relative wages of women. These results can also be factored on decline in unionization and not discrimination impact.