Nick, Jenn, Sarah, Jon, and Sarah

3/30/11

Marketing Plan Second Draft

“Ridge View Dairy”

We are a locally established producer and manufacturer in Elizabethtown, Pennsylvania.

We sell a full line of milk products including whole milk, 2% milk, and skim milk. We also sell

our flavored chocolate milk and our homemade ice cream. The retail grocery store that sells our

line of products is Darrenkamp’s Supermarket. They have three locations one being at our home

farm in Elizabethtown and two other stores in Mt. Joy and Willow Street in southern Lancaster

City. We are Elizabethtown's one and only jug milk store. We focus on quality and convenience.

Also, we are a company focusing on meeting the needs of our fresh product purchasing

consumers. Our retailer is part of the Family Owned Market chain; a collaboration of numerous

grocery store chains that structure themselves around the same beliefs and qualities. Each store

in the Family Owned Market chain has a close relationship with the communities they reside in.

Darrenkamp’s is your neighborly owned supermarket that specializes in being there for your

family in all your purchasing needs. We are proud of our extraordinary customer service our

mission statement is “What separates true costumer service from mere lip service is the wiliness

to put the costumer first in everything we do” (Darrenkamp's 2011).

Our competitive environment consists of several aspects because milk is not a heavily

differentiated product. Our products lines are mostly differentiated by our extremely creamy

chocolate milk and homemade ice cream. Our biggest and easiest competitor to identify with is

Oregon Dairy Supermarket. They are a similar competitor in that they produce, pasteurize,

homogenize, bottle and sell their milk products right on the farm just as we do. Although the

Oregon Dairy Supermarket is located Lititz, Pa which is 22.2 miles approximately a 30 minute

drive away. The indirect but just as important competitor is Giant Supermarket in

Elizabethtown, located only 10 minutes away from Darrenkamp’s. It sits along Interstate 230

which travels directly through the middle of town. The bargain prices that Giant offers make it

difficult for our fresh, homemade products to compete against. Giant also has a rewards program

that offers customers discounts at their gas stations. The customer is eligible for the discounted

savings on gasoline after spending a certain amount of money on groceries.

Our political-legal environment consists of many things. One aspect is the establishment

of the minimum prices by the Pennsylvania Milk Marketing Board. The purpose of the milk

marketing board is to not undercut the competitors and to ensure farmers receive a premium for

their milk.

Because Giant is more convenient for many consumers it makes it more difficult for us to

attract business to our retail stores. Our nation is in a state of recovery; this means consumers

are less likely to pay premium prices for our farm fresh products thus requiring us to price our

products competitively against Giant. Instead they travel to Giant to save money. Since leaving

a state of recession the business is picking up and consumers will be more likely to buy our farm

fresh products. We collected average income statistics from the Census Bureau and concluded

that the median income for families in Lancaster County was 65,297 and the nationwide median

is 62,363. The median income for Lancaster Country is slightly higher than that of the national

median income for families. We chose to use the median values because it gives us a better

estimate of a normal distribution of family incomes, whereas the mean values consider outliers

which have a substantial effect on the statistics.

Our socio-cultural environment consists of many rural consumers who like to support

local business; also known as locavores. Our goal is to gain the consumers from the suburban

areas who earn higher income and can afford to pay a premium for our products, this dictates our

target market. Currently this seems to be a trend that is being used my many stores, large and

small, in the area.

Dairy products have always been a large part of the food pyramid and for good reason.

Dairy products offer a great deal of benefits; the most popular of these benefits is the nutrient

calcium. Our line of milk and ice cream products provide calcium which has been proven to help

strengthen bones in people of all ages; this can help prevent diseases such as osteoporosis, a

disease that can make bones brittle. Another nutrient found in our dairy products is vitamin D.

According to the Mayo Clinic website, vitamin D

“The major biologic function of vitamin D is to maintain normal blood levels of calcium

and phosphorus. Vitamin D aids in the absorption of calcium, helping to form and

maintain strong bones. Recently, research also suggests vitamin D may provide

protection from osteoporosis, hypertension (high blood pressure), cancer, and several

autoimmune diseases” (Mayo Clinic 2011).

A third vital nutrient that can be found in our dairy products is the mineral potassium. According

to the University of Maryland’s Medical Center, the mineral potassium is an electrolyte that “is

crucial to heart function and plays a key role in skeletal and smooth muscle contraction, making

it important for normal digestive and muscular function” (Ehrlich 2009). The same source goes

on to further list numerous conditions that potassium has shown positive linkages in helping such

as bone health, hypokalemia, high blood pressure, stroke, and inflammatory bowel disease

(Ehrlich 2009).

These nutrients have been deemed so important that the United States Department of

Agriculture has decided to raise the DGA’s, United States Dietary Guidelines for Americans,

daily recommended servings of dairy products for adolescent children by half a serving per day

(Glaberson 2011). The same source goes on to elaborate even more about the multiple benefits

that dairy products are linked to such as cardiovascular disease, type 2 diabetes, kidney disease,

and even the newest discovery of dairy products leading to fighting obesity (Glaberson 2011).

We are going to use these nutritional facts and new recommended daily doses of dairy as part of

our marketing plan in order to entice consumers to purchase more of our products to help

themselves lead a better and healthier lifestyle.

We are providing a full line of milk and a line of multiple ice cream flavors. We offer

whole, skim, and 2% white milk, as well as chocolate milk in gallon, half-gallon, and quart sizes.

At Ridge View we produce, pasteurize, homogenize, and package the milk in plastic bottles on

location. Our milk is of higher quality than store brand private label milk companies. At Ridge

View we produce a differentiated line of milk. Our company is able to get our milk to the

shelves faster than our competitors because we are vertically integrated. Our products go

directly from our farm and processing facilities to Darrenkamp’s stores; therefore, cutting out the

middle man and reducing our lead time. Our milk line is differentiated because we take pride in

our products and quality service focusing on the local farm and family lifestyle. We focus on our

local economy and the people that reside in the community around us. Our competitor, Giant

grocery stores, is a corporation that does not focus on the local aspect. At Ridge View, we

support local business and the stability and prosperity of the local economy.

Gallon Half Gallon Quart

Whole 4.04 2.09 1.14

2% 3.81 1.97 1.08

Skim 3.48 1.81 1.00

Chocolate 4.15 2.14 1.17

Figure 1: Prices of different types of milk compared to the packaging. Prices retrieved from the Pennsylvania Milk Marketing Board April 2011

at http://www.portal.state.pa.us/portal/server.pt?open=512&objID=4744&mode=2&PageID=484932

Our pricing strategy is a competitive pricing strategy. Our prices are similar to those of

our competitors. We prefer to focus our efforts on promoting our product emphasizing on the

local, farm fresh aspect. The prices from our milk were acquired from the Pennsylvania Milk

Marketing Board. The PA Milk Marketing Board is a government agency established to ensure

dairy farmers a fair payment for their milk, and sets minimum wholesale and retail prices of milk

(PA Milk Marketing Board, 2011). We decided to use the minimum pricing set by the Milk

Marketing Board to price competitively against Giant.

The means by which we promote our product directly affects the success or failure of our

product. The promotion aspect of marketing involves several elements including personal

selling, advertising, sales promotion, direct marketing and publicity. We have decided on a few

promotional ideas. We are going to put up billboard(s) on the main roads in the Lancaster area.

Another promotional tactic we have embraced is creating a RidgeView website. We intend to

create our website in a way that it will be easily navigable for anyone who uses the internet. By

creating a user-friendly website experience we hope to give interest to people who either do or

do not know of RidgeView. Another aspect of our promotional means is our RidgeView hauling

truck. The sides of the truck are labeled with the RidgeView name. It is an excellent way of

spreading the awareness of the company to the public. Another promotional idea we have

considered is a television commercial. Promotional marketing aspects involve direct marketing

and publicity. We have decided that by having multiple special promotional days at

Darrenkamps grocery market, we will be able to directly market to the public. Part of this idea

includes coupon and flyer hand-outs at the front of the store. Inside the store we plan to set up

sample stations for customers to sample our various milk products as well our ice cream line.

We aim to showcase the importance of local milk coming directly from our farm to our

consumers’ homes. This promotional activity would be an excellent way to reach out the public

face to face.

The distribution of our milk will take place right in our family owned and operated store.

This is not only convenient for us, but it will also help promote our milk. By selling our product

from our own store, we give the customers the sense of satisfaction of buying from a local farm.

The consumer feels good about supporting a local farm and this also helps promote the idea that

they are buying farm fresh milk and a lesser amount of processing.

In addition to this, we will also sell our milk in small stores and farmers’ markets in order

to promote ourselves and get our name out to the public. Buying milk from farmers’ market or

small country store give the customer the same sense of supporting the “little guys” that buying

from our personal store would. The other big advantage is that our products will become known

to more people that they would if we were to only self rom our family-owned store. This is how

we intended to gain publicity.

How are we going to transport the milk from the farm to be processed and sold in our

Darrenkamp stores? We plan to have our own company trucks that will also serve as a form of

advertising the farm. These trucks will be personalized and will serve as another way to make

consumers aware of our family owned and operated farm.

This can be added to the demographics section of our marketing plan:

Our target market consists of affluent, middle-class families in the Elizabethtown area,

specifically with children. All of the demographic research came from the Census Bureau’s

Profile of Selected Economic Characteristics 2000 unless otherwise stated. About 29% of the

population consists of families with children under the age of 18. Occupations of middle-class

families include management, professional, and other related occupations. These types of

occupations encompass 32% of the population. Because a relatively large percentage of the

population is middle-class, the median family income is $52,000.

http://quickfacts.census.gov/qfd/states/42/42071.html

http://www.mmb.state.pa.us/portal/server.pt/community/about_us/4742/introduction/480930 (I

just included all the websites where I found information and figured we could combine it all for

our references). Therefore, all retailers of milk must set their prices above this particular

minimum. Even though Ridge View Farms takes pride in providing premium quality, fresh, local

milk to our consumers, we price our milk comparable to our competition.

http://www.chicagomanualofstyle.org/tools_citationguide.html

Darrenkamp’shttp://www.darrenkamps.com/AboutUs.aspx

Works CitedDarrenkamp's. Our History. 2011. http://www.darrenkamps.com/AboutUs.aspx (accessed April

25, 2011).Ehrlich, Steven D. Potassium. May 6, 2009. http://www.umm.edu/altmed/articles/potassium-

000320.htm (accessed April 10, 2011).Glaberson, Helen. "New US Dietary Guidelines up dairy recommendation for kids." Dairy Re-

porter. February 2, 2011. http://www.dairyreporter.com/content/view/print/356360 (ac-cessed April 10, 2011).

Mayo Clinic. Vitamin D. April 1, 2011. http://www.mayoclinic.com/health/vitamin-d/NS_pa-tient-vitamind (accessed April 1, 2011).