Eden All Natural peanut butter: A small enterprise competing in a saturated South African market

Abstract

The case is particularly well suited to courses in marketing, promotion, integrated marketing communication, or marketing for small and medium enterprises. This teaching case is aimed at postgraduate students in management or business programmes. This case focusses on the growth direction and product promotion decisions of Debbie Ncube, cofounder and managing director of Eden All Natural (Eden) - an award-winning small enterprise that competes in the peanut butter category - in 2021. Conservative with the use of the company’s financial resources, Ncube has to reconsider Eden’s reliance on word-of-mouth, social media, and network marketing for promoting her range of natural peanut and other nut-based products. The case requires students to identify and evaluate the growth options available to Eden, to consider the strategy decisions around product line management and brand development, and to explore the role of packaging in effective product promotion. To develop strategic product-market growth options (using the market diversification matrix) for a growing enterprise To recommend what product line management and brand development strategies can be employed as the product mix gets bigger To explore how packaging could continue to be leveraged to grow sales