Comprehensive Product Costing

Select your favorite drink or snack
item manufactured by a publicly held company. For this product respond to the
following:
Where is the product manufactured?
Given the suggested retail price of the company and using a 50% markup on price
at retail, determine the sell price to the distributor/merchandiser. Review the
company’s overall gross margin. If the product is sold direct to the consumer
you may apply the gross margin as calculated. Applying the gross margin
percentage to your product sales price, infer the cost of the product. Present
your calculations in a supporting table.
Complete the same exercise for a competitor’s product of the same type. Present
your calculations in a supporting table included in your paper.
Comment on the differences in cost between the two competitors, and assert the
reason for this difference (e.g., does the company compete on cost or
differentiation?)
Apply the concept of the value chain to this product. What types of costs would
be relevant for each segment of the value chain for this product?
Research a single critical ingredient of your snack and its source. Do you
expect significant increases in the cost of this ingredient over the next year?
Support your response with input from the commodities market or other economic
data.
What are the opportunities to offset this price increase, maintain gross margin
and offer the product to consumers at the same price currently? Present your
calculations in a supporting table included in your paper.
Your paper should meet the following requirements:
7-10 pages in length including supporting tables, not counting title and
reference pages.