BUSINESS MANAGEMENT - MARKETING ECONOMICS

Business Management - Marketing Economics

Business Management - Marketing Economics

1) S & A Foods Group is a leading manufacturer of pre-packaged chilled-foods specializing in international flavors. The company makes ready-to-eat meals inspired by Asian and Indian cuisine, as well as pan-European and Middle Eastern dishes. S & A Foods sells its products mostly to customers in the retail food, catering, and foodservices sectors. CEO Perween Warsi, dubbed the "Samosa Queen," founded the company in 1986.

2) Over this last summer, gas prices have soared to all time highs. In some parts of the Country the price gallon of gas has risen up to three dollars a gallon. Many factors resulted in this price increase, including the recent Hurricanes such as Katrina and Rita that damaged many Gulf Refinery stations. However, these natural disasters only affect the oil economy for limited periods of time. The biggest cause for gas price increases in the rise in demand of gasoline products nationally and all over the world.

The huge popularity of sport utility vehicles and trucks that are being produced by many automobile manufactures has helped lead to this increase in gas demand. And since the United States is an oil dependant country that imports oil from other nations, worries of this energy crisis has caused the Bush administration to press for bills to allow several oil companies to tap into the oil reserves in Northeast Alaska to help increase our supply of oil.

But this issue has been strongly debated for the past three decades with no solution. Environmental Protection groups have argued that the benefits of oil drilling in Alaska are not enough to overcome the potential environmental damage that will be caused.

The best alternative fuel is Hydrogen. Hydrogen gas is nontoxic, burns efficiently producing pure water and electricity that can be used to fuel automobiles. The CQ Researcher shows that many cars are available now that use hydrogen cells to operate such as the Sequel. The Sequel is a hydrogen operated sedan manufactured by General Motors Corp., which is yet to be released, that performs similar to a regular sedan but instead uses Hybrid Technology. According to the article, General Motors predicts that by 2010 it will be mass produced and available for consumers. (Cooper, Mary H.) Other automobile manufactures such as Toyota and Honda have already released Hybrid cars that use hydrogen, but the price tags of these cars are still quite expensive making it unaffordable to be used by average consumers. (GM Sequel: Reinvented Automobile: No Longer Just a Dream)

This technology has yet to evolve and still requires years of research in order for it to completely replace gasoline operated cars. American automobile manufactures still need to develop more fuel efficient cars in order to compete with Japanese automakers that are already producing hybrid cars. Although cars like the Sequel by GM and Ford's Escape are promising starts of hybrid technology, they are still behind in fuel efficiency. Ford and GM are mainly producing gas guzzling Sport Utility Vehicles ...