Darden Operations Plan for Olive Garden Frozen Food:

Working in a group of 4 students, we developed an operations plan for Darden, parent company of Olive Garden, describing how they could start a frozen food line based on the Olive Garden brand.

We were interested in how a $6.7B corporation, stuck in the declining casual dining market, could further their brand recognition and capture some of the $64.8B frozen food industry. As consumers are more and more changing their dining habits – eating out less frequently and changing the way they shop – this market seemed a prime opportunity for Darden to help it diversify, grow, and become more resilient.

The plan described the state of the industry, and an overall operational strategy, leveraging on the existing infrastructure of Darden – a network of over 2,000 suppliers, existing office space in Orange County, Florida and retail distribution through existing channels. The plan calls for manufacturing of frozen entrees to be done by current vendors, with R&D contracted out to a specialized firm.

In addition the plan described marketing tactics, including re-editing of existing commercials to add in a 5 second teaser for the frozen meals, and attach points to the existing experience. A major initiative was to give coupons to in-restaurant diners, encouraging them to extend their Olive Garden experience to their own kitchens.

A financial projection, calculated using a demand forecast and scaled financial statements from the Darden annual report, shows the endeavor should net approximately $100M in three years.

This project was purely speculative, and included no contact with Darden by the team.

Full project report available upon request.

Date: Fall 2009
Class: Operations and Strategy
Contributed to: Secondary Research, Writing, Analysis, Financial Analysis, Concept Development, Ideation