3 Companies

Honest Tea: They strive to create a healthier, more organic tea, but with that, an honest company with helpful employees. Honest Tea values diversity in their workplace and their relationship with customers.

Burt's Bees: This company claims to have a "triple bottom line," which is people, profit, planet. They quote, "you can't have one without the other two." Burt's Bees care about the environment and prove it through their natural and responsible packaging.

Whole Foods: Their business claims to sell the highest quality foods and "evaluate quality in terms of nutrition, freshness, appearance, and taste." Whole Foods works to put products on their shelves with the best possible prices and they even have a list of Quality Standards.

The Dilemma: Questions for Discussion

1. What are the roles of supply, demand, and competition in this scenario?
-An example of supply and demand in this scenario is that local customers cannot go to another pharmacy, because the nearest one is 40 miles away. They demand the goods from either of these two pharmacies.
-The competition part of this is that the owner of the other pharmacy wants to buy "my" pharmacy and will raise the profits of it by 10 percent allowing us to earn much more money.


2. What are the underlying ethical issues?
- We would be forcing customers to go to this one expensive pharmacy, because they have nowhere else to go.


3. What would you do if you were actually faced with this issue?
- I would combine businesses, but not raise the prices, because my previous customers would have to shop at the new pharmacy now so I would still be making the same profit as before, if not more.