What Should Diamond Do to Grow Its Business?

What should Diamond do to grow its business?

Diamond should consider more snack orientated acquisitions as well as maintaining concentration on the growth of its existing brands. While Diamond should consider investing in other acquisitions it should not allow it to become a distraction successfully growing brands such as the Emerald range of goods. Considering that the snack product line for Diamond experienced the most aggressive growth out of the other product ranges I think that Diamond should consider the acquisition of a struggling snack product and re brand and re position it under the Emerald name. As long as this acquisition receives the level of attention other products in the Emerald snack range have received it will prove as a success therefore leading the business to experiencing more growth.

What business is Diamond in?

When Diamond was first established back in 1912 it was a group of local and regional walnut grower cooperatives that joined together to form a federated cooperative with the simple mandate to “receive, pack, ship and market at cost the walnuts grown or controlled by its members or affiliated associations”.

Fast forward to 2009 and Diamond has become a large food business and has extended its product line beyond walnuts to products such as culinary, in-shell and snack products as well as non-retail markets such as ingredient/food service and international sales.

Acquisitions of other brands such as Pop Secret and Harmony Foods has allowed Diamond to become a business with a very synergetic and successful portfolio in food goods.

As a cooperative, why couldn’t Diamond achieve the results it has achieved as a public company?

By the early 2000’s Diamond had become a very successful cooperative but the company’s capital structure also had it limitations as it lacked the financial funding to grow the business further. Growers in the cooperative were more worried in the short term economic issues rather than investing in the company’s growth which restricted the company’s growth.

The decision to go public proved to be a success as the company received the needed capital for growth through the medium of shares. The offering raised 102 million for the company. This could be used for further brand building and growth for the company. Otherwise had Diamond remained as a cooperative this would have not happened.

How have the business model, leadership and culture at Diamond contributed to the success of the company?

After the change from cooperative to public company Mendes was determined to change the business model of the company into a more