Ética Empresarial

Business Ethics

1.     Background

During 2018 and 2019, USA were invaded by plant-based alternatives to animal based food products, with a specific incidence on plant-based alternatives to animal milk.

The rise of such trend has been represented for the utmost success of a specific product: OATLY BARISTA ( https://us.oatly.com/products/barista-edition-oatmilk ).

OATLY Barista is a product that, given its specific features and characteristics, is crafted to suit a plant-base alternative (oat) to use with coffee, replacing animal milk in coffee applications and that sustained a dramatic increase in plant-based coffee lattes, cappuccinos and macchiatos, that in some Starbucks stores even surpassed the original products with animal milk.

The success of this product leaded to shortage in its supply (unexpected high levels of demand) what has even fueled product success: https://www.delish.com/food-news/a25619874/oat-milk-shortage/

With an irreverent and strong marketing positioning, and leveraging product success, OATLY has decided to invest in the opening of a factory in USA in order to optimize logistic efficiency and the strong demand for the product:

https://www.bloomberg.com/news/articles/2019-04-08/oat-milk-squeeze-set-to-ease-with-giant-new-jersey-plant-opening

Simultaneously, the FDA has started discussions regarding the content of sure that wasn’t declared on the oat beverage, since given the enzymatic process of production,  sweetness can be extracted from the oat cereal, and that sugar content wasn’t declared on the product label:

 https://www.foodnavigator-usa.com/Article/2019/07/09/Oatmilk-brands-to-update-Nutrition-Facts-panels-in-light-of-FDA-guidance-on-added-sugar-labeling

2.     Objetive

On the final exam for Business Ethics, students shall:

·       Identify the market objective that can be pursuit by OATLY, taking into account the referred FDA regulation

·       List OATLY stakeholders that are relevant for the design and implementation of a non-market strategy (please rank accordingly with the importance for the company non-market strategy)

·       List the general objectives of the non-market strategy to be implemented and its compatibility with the market objectives

3.     Presentation

The final report shall:

·       Be presented in the format selected by the student

·       Be delivered until 23h59, December 9^th 2022

Porto, 16th November 2022