Latin Liver Case Memo - Luxury Food: Fattened Goose Liver

Latin Liver Case Memo

Eduardo Sousa, a Spaniard, was able to make Foie Gras (luxury food: fattened goose liver) in a natural organic way without force feeding his geese. The techniques he employed to create this unique product gave him a strong sustainable competitive advantage.

Foie Gras has been deemed an illegal food in many countries due to the inhumane techniques required to make it, which involve force feeding the birds. However, Eduardo’s alternate technique is natural and would deem his Foie Gras legal, thereby giving him a strong competitive advantage.

Eduardo’s natural technique hinged on the principle that geese have an innate instinct to gorge on food when they feel winter approaching. This instinct however, relied heavily on them not feeling domesticated, but instead, free. One of the techniques Eduardo employed, to achieve this, was that he never fenced his birds in, losing 20% of them to predators, a poor yield compared to inhuman tactics, but very good considering no fences kept the birds in or the predators out. This could be due to the fact that they grew to extraordinarily large sizes and were able to fend for themselves. Eduardo never interfered in this process adding to their feeling of freedom. Additionally, Eduardo would never bring food to his birds, instead, surrounding them with vegetation and letting them naturally feed.

Eduardo also had a strong competitive advantage in the unique natural flavor of his Foie Gras. The  spicy, fruity and salty tastes were all  naturally introduced by the vegetation and nuts he grew in the farm. As a result, he never had to season his Foie Gras before they were served.

Several factors led to the sustainability of his competitive advantage. He did contribute a lot towards creating the natural environment, however, there were multiple interactions within this environment which Eduardo did not have much control over, such as the natural feeding, the natural fending off of predators and the invitation of other wild geese which promoted natural mating. All of these create causal ambiguity which promotes his sustainable competitive advantage.

Considering all the points mentioned above, it is clear that his ability to create this environment and his methods of interaction and treatment of his birds were extremely tacit in nature. This made it hard for anyone to simply copy his techniques. We have clear evidence of the tacit nature of this knowledge since Dan Barber, a skilled chef and farmer, was not able to replicate Eduardo’s success over several attempts in a 3-4 year period, even though Eduardo freely offered all his knowledge and understanding over multiple meetings and detailed discussions.