Summary
This downloadable lesson for B2 ESL students helps them explore the business strategies behind Haribo's global success. This English class material uses a video to delve into how the company maintains its "one-product empire" by adapting to diverse local consumer preferences.
This lesson helps intermediate students understand business concepts in English. Activities include a warm-up discussion on consumer preferences, a listening comprehension exercise based on a video about Haribo's economics, and practical vocabulary matching tasks.
Students will practice the Present Simple Passive to describe processes and engage in speaking activities to apply new business collocations and phrases. The material is designed to enhance comprehension of business-related topics and provide practical communication tools for discussing company strategies.
Activities
- A warm-up discussion where students talk about their favorite snacks and the importance of understanding local consumer preferences.
- Video comprehension questions based on a talk about Haribo's unique business strategy and global adaptation.
- A grammar exercise focusing on the Present Simple Passive, allowing students to practice forming and identifying this structure in business contexts.
- Vocabulary matching tasks to reinforce key terms like "tweaked," "churns out," and "diversified" from the video.
- Practical English exercises covering business collocations and phrases such as "economies of scale" and "going gangbusters."
- Speaking practice where students discuss business insights using the lesson's vocabulary and grammar.
- [Narrator] When you open a bag of Haribo Goldbears
in the US, you'll notice that there are more red bears
than there are of any other color.
That's on purpose.
Haribo found that US consumers
prefer raspberry-flavored bears,
so they tweaked the mix in production.
Today, the company's Wisconsin factory
churns out 60 million Goldbears a day,
and it's this factory that Haribo is betting on
to take on the US candy market.
This is the economics of Haribo.
Haribo is one of the largest
gummy candy manufacturers in the world,
thanks in part to a simple strategy: focus.
- A lot of the bigger companies
have these very diversified businesses.
- [Narrator] Hershey, best known for chocolate,
now makes pretzels and dipped fruit snacks.
And Ferrara owns brands across hard, chewy,
and powder-based candies.
- And it just allows them
sort of to have something for everyone
versus just having really a single product
that you're marketing all year long.
- [Narrator] But Haribo goes the other way,
focusing primarily on gummy candy,
and that focus is an advantage.
- They are pretty much a one product company.
It's really just simplicity of production.
If you even think about like in your home kitchen,
if you were just making one meal
over and over and over again,
you really only need a certain set of ingredients,
a couple pots and pans.
In an industrial context, it's really the same.
- [Narrator] In the US,
the company uses select core recipes.
- It gives us expertise
so that when we want to make a flavor change
or a texture change, it allows us to tweak things.
- [Narrator] And at scale, gives the company an advantage
in negotiations for equipment and ingredients.
- The leverage it gives us is just the fact
that we're buying more of one thing.
When you are able to buy more of something,
you get volume discounts.
It gives us economies of scale.
- [Narrator] But-
- If your particular product isn't the one
that's currently on trend, then you can sort of lose out.
Efficiency only benefits you
when you are efficiently making something people want.
- [Narrator] So knowing exactly what consumers want
is key to staying on top of demand.
And in fact, creating more demand.
That's why-
- Having facilities that are local has definite benefits
in the sense that you can just really be closer
to your consumer.
- [Narrator] That strategy is clear
in Pleasant Prairie, Wisconsin.
Home to Haribo's first US production facility,
a 500,000 square foot factory that opened in 2023.
Before the factory-
- We were importing 100% of our product.
- [Narrator] Getting Haribos to the United States
used to take months.
- It could be up to 12 to 14 weeks
because it had to be made in Europe,
and then it went through Rotterdam,
then it went on a very long boat journey.
- [Narrator] Now it's a matter of weeks
with the Wisconsin factory
producing about 25 different types of gummies,
and the Wisconsin base is key
to determining what Haribo makes in the US.
- The faster you can react, the better your sales are.
- [Narrator] Local offices run focus groups
and can develop new products accordingly
in shorter periods of time.
- We ask about both texture, flavor,
but how you're gonna use the product.
We also do the same testing for packaging
'cause packaging also plays an important role.
- [Narrator] All that feedback
drives a very specific insight.
What's considered good varies by region,
and Haribo tailors accordingly.
Take this bag of Starmix.
In the US, the original mix
included Goldbears, Happy Cola, Friendship Rings,
Twin Snakes, and Happy Cherries.
But after learning American consumers
wanted the Fried Egg and Foam Heart gummies
they saw in the UK version,
Haribo swapped in those marshmallow textures.
This strategy plays out
across Haribo's 16 factories worldwide.
The company's manufacturing facility in Turkey, for example,
makes Halal certified products to meet local demand.
- In the Scandinavian country, Denmark, Sweden,
they love licorice and they love strong licorice taste
and even salty products.
This wouldn't work in other markets.
So the decentralized structure helps us to be agile
and to react on development in different markets.
- [Narrator] If demand is strong enough,
Haribo will also expand its horizons.
Take the Chamallow, the only Haribo product
that includes chocolate.
An existing marshmallow product was the base,
but market research in Belgium
showed demand for a chocolate version,
so Haribo launched it there,
and Haribo can use its larger international portfolio
to its benefit.
- One of the big things that US candy companies are facing
are a lot of pressure from federal and state policymakers
to transition to natural food dyes.
- [Narrator] Some Haribo products made in the States
still have Red 40 in the ingredients,
but the company already uses fruit and vegetable juices
for color in other products and in other countries.
- We, in our current portfolio,
have different types of coloring agents,
different kinds of flavoring agents,
so we feel very prepared to do things different,
or if there's regulations that change,
having this factory gives us the agility
to make those changes.
- [Narrator] Today, Haribo produces
more than 800 different products around the world.
And in the past year alone,
Haribo has added 2.6 million new American households
to its customer base.
- Different candies have their moments in the sun.
Gummies are really going gangbusters right now.
- [Narrator] Sugar candy sales are up 74% since 2020,
and with cocoa prices historically high-
- You're seeing a lot of the big confection companies
rolling out, you know, new gummy products as a result.
- [Narrator] So for Haribo-
- On the one hand, it's great, you know,
they've probably got a lot of demand for their core product.
On the other hand,
it is inevitably going to mean more competition.
They just have to be really nimble and adaptable
and keep trying to appeal to consumers with new products
to keep the sort of fire alive for gummies
as long as they can.
Vocabulary focus
The vocabulary section introduces key business terms from the video. Key terms include "tweaked," "churns out," "diversified," "primarily," "leverage," and "nimble." Students also learn practical business phrases such as "on purpose," "economies of scale," "staying on top of," "expand its horizons," "going gangbusters," and "lose out."
Grammar focus
This lesson concentrates on the Present Simple Passive. Students will learn its structure (is/are + past participle) and practice using it when the agent performing the action is unknown or less important than the action itself, often in descriptions of processes or general truths in a business context.
