In 2009, David Tucker quit his job at a large beer company to start his own brewery, Tempe Microbrewery (TM). His family supported his decision and invested in the business along with David. TM began operations on January 10, 2010 and now produces four labels of specialty beers (Saguaro Pale Ale, Bisbee Bock, Ocotillo Amber Pilsner, and Sedona Stout). An explanation of the beer-making process is shown in Appendix A.

In much of the United Sates (including Arizona), beer is sold in a three-tier system. Under this system, beer is manufactured by producers, sold to distributors, who then sell to retailers (such as liquor stores, drug stores, and grocery stores). David employs two salespeople who received a fixed monthly salary, plus an 8 percent commission. All beer is sold to beer distributors (primarily in the Southwestern United States) in cases of 24 bottles. Product sales and cost information for 2013 are shown in Exhibit 1 with additional information in Exhibit 2. David rents a facility that is used to make the beer, a refrigeration area to store the beer, and a small office area. TM brewery has five machines with 9,500 total machine hours available per year to produce beer (assuming TM remains on one shift with some normal maintenance, breaks, etc.). While there is an empty space in the facility that could be used to expand the beer operations, the company would need to purchase an additional grain hopper and brew house for about $100,000 (the current water system and process control system could be expanded to handle the new machine). As discussed in Appendix A, beers are aged in a refrigeration area prior to sale. The current refrigeration unit allows for different temperatures in different areas of the unit and the unit is usually running about 80 percent full. Keeping the refrigeration unit somewhat full helps reduce refrigeration costs. Additionally, since the company is so new, sales have been growing but erratic (from 2010 to 2011, sales growth was over 45 percent; however, from 2012 to 2013, sales growth was only 12 percent). Thus keeping more beer on hand allows the company to meet the erratic demand without loss of sales.

David has not taken a salary since the business started. While the business has been generating a small profit, David has been reinvesting the earnings in the business. He wants to grow the business to generate more profit for his family and himself. David has been considering increasing the price on Saguaro Pale Ale from $21.00 per case to $25.00 per case. He thinks that, with this price increase, unit sales will decrease from 11,925 cases to 9,540 cases per year. However, this would only reduce total annual Saguaro Pale Ale revenues to $238,500 from $250,425. Alternatively, David could drop the price of Saguaro Pale Ale to $20 per case. Based on his market research, he thinks that this will result in Saguaro Pale Ale sales increasing to 13,000 cases per year. He is leaning toward this alternative as this will increase Saguaro Pale Ale revenues from $250,425 to $260,000 per year.

While the company has some cash on hand, neither the company nor Davids family have another $100,000 to invest in the business right now for a new grain hopper and brew house. Since the business is new and has been showing only small profits, David has not been able to get a loan to expand the business. Instead, David wants to fully utilize the machines they already have. In 2013, they used a little over 8,700 machine hours (as shown in Exhibit 1) and the existing five machines have a total of 9,500 machine hours available during the year (assuming normal maintenance and some repairs needed during the year). Thus, the existing machines have approximately 800 additional hours available for use. David wants to keep producing and selling all four of his product lines because many of the beer distributors like buying from breweries that offer several different beers. However, he wants to direct the salespeople to emphasize a certain product when they are out talking to the beer distributors. Given the current machine availability, David is not sure what beer product line to tell the sales people to emphasize in order to maximize his profits.

Finally, David and his family love root beer. Root beer follows a somewhat similar process to beer in that the ingredients are mixed together to form a culture that then goes through fermenting, filtering, and filling. Root beer would not need to be aged or stored in the refrigerator. There is an empty area in the current microbrewery facility that could be dedicated to making root beer. As a result, David has been talking with his family about producing and selling a line of specialty root beer. Root beer would be produced using different machinery rather than the existing five beer machines. Davids sister knows someone who is getting out of the soda business and would be willing to sell the used machinery needed to make the root beer for $8,000. Based on market research he has done, David thinks that he could charge $16.50 per case of root beer. Based on the same market research, there is a lot of uncertainty in how many cases of root beer the company could sell. David is less familiar with the root beer market and there is a wide range in sales of specialty root beer in the local groceries. Based on his understanding of the market, he thinks he could sell between 2,500 and 10,000 cases of root beer per year with likely sales of about 5,000 cases.

Root beer could be sold to some of his current distributors. However, soda does not need to be sold through the three-tier system that is required for alcohol sales. Therefore, much of the root beer sales would be directly to upscale groceries such as La Grande Orange Grocery and Pizzeria in Phoenix and Whole Foods and AJs Fine Foods with locations throughout Arizona. David could produce the root beer in-house or out-source the production. David has talked with another company who could produce the root beer for TM using Davids recipe and TM could sell it as their brand (this option is referred to as private label). It could be purchased from this other company for $13.25 per case. TM would still need to incur some variable handling costs and some minor fixed costs. Alternatively TM could produce the root beer in house. See Exhibit 3 for estimated cost information.

You have been hired as a consultant to help David with the business. Please address the following questions in preparation for your discussions with him.

1. Ignore any current plans. Using last years actual data and sales mix, how many total cases would David need to sell in order to earn $75,000 before tax? How many cases of each of the four labels would TM need to produce?
2. In Question 1, you identified the total number of cases the company needs to sell to earn $75,000 before tax. Assume you did the calculations in Question 1 correctly. However, before discussing your solution with the owner, identify and explain at least three issues related to your analysis and the assumptions employed in your analysis in Question 1 (discuss each concern; what it is and why it is a concern; do not just question general facts of the case such as why TM is charging a certain price for one product or how TM can reduce direct material cost.
3. Ignore the desire to earn $75,000 before tax and refer to the original data. David has a few options regarding Saguaro Pale Ale pricing: (a) keep the sales price the same (no change), (b) increase the sales price, or (c) decrease the sales price. What would you recommend he do and why? Provide both quantitative and qualitative analysis.
4. Next, ignoring the Saguaro Pale Ale information, consider Davids question regarding what product line the sales people should emphasize. David wants their sales efforts to maximize profits and utilize the companys current capacity. What would you tell him? Explain your rationale.
5. Analyzing the sales forecast for root beer, what preliminary course of action do you recommend (in-house or out-source production) and why? Support your recommendations with numbers.