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Easy Growth

Lactose King

#Services
ProHub Comment

This case presents a well-structured growth challenge with a clear quantitative answer path. The case guides candidates through market segmentation analysis, customer preference mapping, and financial modeling—requiring candidates to synthesize multiple data exhibits into a coherent recommendation. The scaffolded approach (Exhibit #1 → #2 → #3) helps candidates develop analytical frameworks while testing their ability to synthesize insights across different data types.

Estimated Time 15 minutes
Difficulty Easy
Source Duke
50 / 100
Our client is Lactose King, a premium ice cream restaurant chain with approximately 3,000 locations throughout the United States. While they’ve enjoyed consistent profitability and are an industry leader in direct-to-consumer ice cream sales, their revenue has been stagnant over the past few years. What can they do to improve their gross revenue?

Clarifying Information

  1. Lactose King operates under a simple business model of owning and operating all of their own stores, procuring ingredients from various suppliers throughout the country, and processing/serving the ice cream at individual locations.
  2. They serve only soft-serve ice cream and related products (milkshakes, ice cream sandwiches, etc.)
  3. Revenue last year was at $250K/store [$750M], and they would like to improve gross revenue by 33% in 1 year [$1B target].
  4. The candidate’s framework should consider: improving ice cream sales (marketing campaign, expanding outside of the United States), offering a new product (desert or non-desert), utilizing a new sales channel (selling to grocery stores), consumer preferences, etc.