Dr. Tim's Premium all Natural Pet Food: Growth Options and Web Analytics Insights. PENDLETON Glenna. London, Ontario : IVEY Publishing, 2012
Dr. Tim’s Pet Food Company (Dr. Tim’s) grew from its beginnings in 2004 to selling 900,000 pounds of pet kibble in 2010. In addition, approximately 1.8 million pounds of kibble were sold between January and July of 2011, which represented a 100 per cent rate of growth in kibble sold in the first six months of 2011, as compared to the whole year of 2010.1 Company founder Dr. Tim Hunt was looking for ways to continue to grow his pet food business, despite the fact that many of the local markets were saturated with his company’s existing products. What was the best strategy for expansion — especially since this business venture was located in an isolated geographical area and sales representatives were not able to easily access large populated areas? Hunt was particularly concerned about an issue that his wife had raised: if Dr. Tim’s was to expand the distribution of its high quality formula to large, low-cost stores like Walmart (i.e., stores that did not carry similar exclusive brands like Science Diet) would this hurt the exclusive image of the brand that Dr. Tim’s had worked hard to create?
Hunt had four basic options open to him. He could:
- Expand his current products in current markets (a penetration strategy);
- Develop new products for current markets (a product development strategy);
- Expand current products in new markets (a market development strategy); and/or
- Expand new products in new markets (a diversification strategy).