Question

Case: Cost System Considerations for CANADA SNOWCONES LTD.

Canada Snowcones Ltd. (CSL) owned and operated 20 retail frozen yogurt stores spread throughout Southern Ontario, from Toronto to Windsor. CSL's stores sold only high quality, premium frozen yogurt. They offered an assortment of 35 different frozen yogurt flavours. A significant amount of the CSL flavours were special, such as "Peanut Butter Bacon", "Charcoal-Sushi", and "Tropical Cheese Sensations". However, CSL also sold a few of the classic frozen yogurt flavours, such as vanilla, milk chocolate, mint, and other singular fruit flavours. While some of the flavours were very popular, there were also some of the more peculiar flavours that had low total sales in terms of units.

CSL produced its own frozen yogurt. The founder of the company, Samantha Reynolds, had originally made the yogurt in her basement. But eventual growing demand led to Samantha renting part of factory for CSL's production. As CSL grew, Samantha was able to afford automated but more costly production equipment that blended the flavours and packaged the liquid frozen yogurt for freezing. CSL's most significant production costs were for raw materials, particularly yogurt, brown sugar, and the special flavour ingredients, and for the purchase, operation, and maintenance of production equipment.

All of CSL's products had the same retail price, as customers could choose or combine any flavours by scoops. Samantha set the prices to generate, on average, a markup of 100% on average full production costs. CSL's 2019 budget included manufacturing overhead (MOH) of $450,000. To estimate product costs, Samantha spread this MOH cost to products based on a proportion of the direct labour (DL) costs used in the production process. CSL's total DL costs for 2019 was $200,000, so Samantha charged the overhead to products at a rate of MOH to total DL costs.

Last week, Laura Horton, Samantha's babysitter for her daughter and the CEO of a large production firm, advised that Samantha's pricing strategy was not optimal. Laura's insight was that the expenses for producing CSL's numerous flavours were not uniform. She thought those inconsistencies should be reflected in the prices charged, or CSL's earnings would fluctuate as the combination of flavours sold varied.

Laura proposed that Samantha reestimate product costs using activity-based costing. She recommended that Samantha identify the major activities whose costs were included in the company's MOH costs. Then, she should apply these costs to products based on the products consumption of each of those activities. In response to Laura's suggestions, Samantha prepared the information presented below in Table 1.

Samantha decided to hire your consulting firm to help calculate the costs of two demonstrative flavours as an experiment to see if Laura's activity based costing system suggested produced any significant contrasts. She asked Laura to take her best estimate as to where she might find the most material differences, if any existed. After Samantha described the products to her, Laura suggested that she use Peanut Butter Bacon and Chocolate as the test product examples. Table 2 provides data relevant to the two selected products.

Table 1 Activity Purchasing Material Handling Mixing Chilling Packaging Quality Control Total MOH costs Canada Snowcones Ltd. - Budgeted MOH Costs Budgeted Cost (5000) Driver $ 60,000 Purchase Orders $ 71,250 Number of setups $ 91,500 Mixing hours $ 131,250 Chilling hours $ 82,500 Packaging machine hours $ 13,500 Number of batches $ 450,000 Budgeted Activity Level 829 1,766 920 1,856 1,020 205 Table 2 Canada Snowcones Ltd. - Two Product Examples Peanut Butter Bacon Direct Material (DM) $ 2.20 per gallon Direct Labour (DL) $ 1.40 per gallon Budgeted Production and sales 1,500 gallons Size of Batch 100 gallons Number of setups 3 per batch Size of Purchase Order 40 gallons Time in mixer 0.40 hour per 100 gallons Time in chiller 1.50 hour per 100 gallons Time in package machine 0.50 hour per 100 gallons Chocolate $ 1.90 per gallon $ 1.40 per gallon 80,000 gallons 4,000 gallons 3 per batch 500 gallons 0.20 hour per 100 gallons 1.50 hour per 100 gallons 0.25 hour per 100 gallons

Case Questions

1.      Utilizing the information above, calculate the full product cost (on a per gallon basis) of the Peanut Butter Bacon and Chocolate flavours utilizing:

a.      Samantha's more traditional costing system.

b.      Laura's suggestion to use activity-based costing.

2.      What are the impacts, if there is any at all, of switching CSL's costing method? In particular, are the any significant contrasts between traditional costing and activity-based costing in terms of:

a.      Their impact on costs for independent products.

b.      Their effect on CSL's total firm income? (assuming everything else remains the same, such as production and sales prices)

c.       If there are significant contrasts, why are they present? If there are no significant contrasts, why are they not present?

3.      What would you recommend to be Samantha's next step, based on this analysis? Explain.

Answer 1

1. (a) Calculate full product cost (on a per-gallon basis) of the Peanut Butter Bacon and Chocolate flavours under the traditional costing system.

	Peanut Butter Bacon	Chocolate
Direct Material (DM)	$ 2.20 Per Gallon	$ 1.90 Per Gallon
Direct Labour (DL)	$ 1.40 Per Gallon	$ 1.40 Per Gallon
Manufacturing Overhead (MOH)	($ 1.40 X $ 2.25) = $3.15 Per Gallon	($ 1.40 X $ 2.25) = $3.15 Per Gallon
Total Cost	$ 6.75 Per Gallon	$ 6.45 Per Gallon

Note: Manufacturing Overhead (MOH) Per Direct Labour Cost = Total Manufacturing Overhead (MOH)

Total Direct Labour Hours

= $ 450000 / $ 200000

= $ 2.25 Per DL Cost

1. (b) Calculate full product cost (on a per-gallon basis) of the Peanut Butter Bacon and Chocolate flavours under the activity-based costing.

	Peanut Butter Bacon	Chocolate
Direct Material (DM)	$ 2.20 Per Gallon	$ 1.90 Per Gallon
Direct Labour (DL)	$ 1.40 Per Gallon	$ 1.40 Per Gallon
Manufacturing Overhead (MOH) (Note 2)	$5.53 Per Gallon	$ 1.65 Per Gallon
Total Cost	$ 9.13 Per Gallon	$ 4.95 Per Gallon

Note 1: Calculate Cost Per Unit

Activity	Budgeted Cost	Driver	Budgeted Activity Level	Cost Per Unit
Purchasing	$60000	Purchase Order	829	72.38
Material Handling	$71250	Number of Setups	1766	40.35
Mixing	$91500	Mixing Hours	920	99.46
Chilling	$131250	Chilling Hours	1856	70.72
Packaging	$82500	Packaging Machine Hours	1020	80.89
Quality Control	$13500	Number of Batches	206	65.53

Note 2: Allocation of Manufacturing Overheads

Manufacturing Overhead (MOH)	Peanut Butter Bacon	Chocolate
1. Purchasing	(1500 Gallons/ 40 Gallons X 72.38) =2715	( 80000 Per Gallon/ 500 Gallon x 72.38) =11580
2. Material Handling	( 1500 Gallons/100 Gallons x 3 x 40.35) =1815	(80000 Gallons/4000 Gallons x3 x 40.35)=2420
3. Mixing	(1500 Gallons / 100 Gallons X 0.40 x 99.46)=595	(80000 Gallons/ 100 Gallons X 0.20 x 99.46)=15900
4. Chilling	(1500 Gallons/ 100 Gallons x 1.50 x 70.72)=1590	(80000 Gallons/ 100 Gallons x 1.50 x 70.72)=84800
5. Packaging	(1500 Gallons/100 Gallons x 0.50 x 80.89)=600	(80000 Gallons/ 100 Gallons x 0.25x 80.89)=16100
6. Quality Control	(1500 Gallons/100 Gallons x 65.53)=990	(80000 Gallons/4000 Gallons x 65.53)=1310
Total MOH (A)	$ 8305	$ 132110
Budgeted Production and Sales (B)	1500 Gallons	80000 Gallons
MOH Per Gallons (A / B)	$5.53 per Gallons	$ 1.65 per Gallons

2. Impact on Costs for Independent Products

	Peanut Butter Bacon	Chocolate
Total Cost Per Unit Under Traditional Cost System	$ 6.75 Per Gallon	$ 6.45 Per Gallon
Total Cost Per Unit Under Activity-Based Cost System	$ 9.13 Per Gallon	$ 4.95 Per Gallon
Impact (Increase)/Decrease	(-) $2.38 Per Gallon	$ 1.5 Per Gallon