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CASE STUDIES: FINDING A NEW MARKET FOR CATTLE

Larry O’Malley is a cattle producer who would like to sell a branded beef product to high-end consumers. Larry thinks the best potential customers would be households where income is in excess of $100,000.

Larry wants to use MarketMaker to learn three things:

1) Where are the highest concentrations of high-income households?
2) What are the names of the grocery stores that serve those high-end neighborhoods and where are they located?
3) What are the names and locations of meat processors?

 
Step by step directions to select household data and to id stores. MarketMaker Tools
Zoom In Identify

1) Where are the highest concentrations of high-income households?

  • From the Begin Your Search page, select Find a Market.
  • In drop box, choose Income.
  • In drop box Select Income choose Household income $100,000 and over. In County, Larry will choose the county he wants to search in. Click Map It.
  • A map of the county area will show the census data requested. The legend indicates the number of households in each census tract. The light green color has the largest number of households for the selected census category, “Household income $100,000 and over.”
  • Larry wants to focus on the census tracts with the highest concentration of high-income households. He will Zoom In around the areas where these households are located by drawing a box around that area. (Hold down the left mouse button and draw a box.)
  • Using the Identify button to the left of the map, Larry can click on a specific census tract within the map to collect census data.

2) What are the names of the grocery stores that serve those high-end neighborhoods and where are they located?

Larry has determined his target market will be a high-end consumer. By following the steps in question one, Larry has narrowed his focus on a specific area. If that area has a vast amount of grocery stores, Larry will need to narrow his target market as much as he can.

  • Larry chooses an area for a target market of grocery stores with high-end consumers.To search for grocers, Larry clicks on the Find Business tab located to the right of the map. In the Select Category drop down box, he selects Retailers: Food. In the box that appears under the category, he selects Grocers. He then clicks on Search Food Retail. The speed of the grocery store mapping will depend on the number of grocery stores in the chosen area.

  • Once the grocery stores appear on the map, Larry has two options. He can identify individual grocery stores by using the Identify tool. He can click on any grocery store marker to receive information on that store. Below the map, the name and address appears. In addition to the grocery store, there will be census data that refers to the census tract that the grocery store resides. Within the same area, Larry can find out more about the specific store by clicking on Detail which provides information about a business that includes the name, address, telephone number, website address, sales volume, number of employees, business type and industry classification.

  • The results of the search should appear in a table below the map. If not, click on View Results tab to the right of the map. A results page will appear below the map listing all of the grocery stores in the area of the map. Within the search results, MapIt/Detail is for the individual record in that row. Larry can click on MapIt and MarketMaker will map only the individual record. If he wants additional information on a particular grocery store, Larry can click on Detail within that individual record.

  • Larry has decided to contact a small grocer to market his beef. Even though there are larger ones in the same area, Larry realizes he cannot supply them with the amount of product they need and he will not have as much control on the price of his product.

3) What are the names and locations of meat processors?

  • From MarketMaker’s Begin Your Search page, Larry selects Processors-Meat Products from the Find a Business dropdown menu. He also wants to search the whole state.

  • Larry has a choice of locating meat processors by location and/or facility type. Larry has no preference to location, but would like a facility that is federally and state inspected, so he selects this from the Inspection Type radio buttons.

  • Once selected, the search results will be displayed. Within the search results, MapIt/Detail is for an individual record in that row. Larry can click on MapIt and MarketMaker will map only the individual record. If he wants additional information on a particular processor, Larry can click on Detail within that individual record. The details include contact information, location, sales, number of employees, business type, USDA and state Dept. of Ag processing plant number, and facility type. Larry can also click on Map All and view all of the search results on one map.

  • Now Larry can identify what processor has the capacity to work with him.

 

 
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