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Group #2: Analysis of Argument
In recent years, Braeburn Corporation has seen lagging sales of its food products. Just a few of the many food products Braeburn sells are soy products. Soy products have been shown to reduce rates of cancer. Because people care about reducing their risk of cancer, Braeburn should increase manufacturing of soy products. This will help Braeburn Corporation improve sales and increase profits.

Discuss the extent to which you agree or disagree with the opinion stated above. Support your views with reasons and/or examples from your own experience, observations or reading.

The author explains that Braeburn Corporation is being faced with declining sales and profits; since, soy products have some health benefit for reducing the rate of cancer, people will purchase more of soy products, thus boosting sales. Here, the author makes some unwarranted assumptions in arriving at this conclusion. His analysis contains many glaring gaps that need to be addressed.

To begin with, the analysis carried out by the author is skewed in favor of soy products. He elaborates by saying that since people are concerned about reducing the incidence of cancer, they will end up buying more soy products.But, the argument only mentions that soy has been shown to reduce the rate of cancer. There is no definite proof to validate this claim. Moreover, only soy product sales are not going to increase profits for Braeburn. There might be certain other food products that may be popular among the consumers and which may help to improve the sales.

Additionally, the author does not substantiate his claim that because only few soy products are sold, the sales are poor. It is possible that there might be an alternate reason for declining sales. These reasons have not been addressed by the argument. Hence, a causal relationship cannot be established between increase in soy products and increase in sales.

Furthermore, the company may not be able to compete with rising raw material costs and operational overheads. The argument does not include details about any rise in transportation costs or storage costs while drawing the conclusion. Because, the cost of acquiring materials may exceed the cost of sales, the company is not recording any profits. The author need to provide certain information regarding this as well.

Moreover, it is very much possible that the consumer base of Braeburn corporation finds only certain food products worth purchasing. These products might be too few in number to boost sales. In addition, product quality of the other food products might be sub-standard which is why they do not sell.

The argument could be strengthened if the above gaps are addressed and sufficient evidence is provided to substantiate the claims made. As it stands, however, the argument is weak and inconclusive.