Chapter 14, Problem 59P

Deru Chocolate Company manufactures two popular candy bars, the Venus bar and the Comet bar. Both candy bars go through a mixing operation where the various ingredients are combined, and the Coating Department where the bars from the Mixing Department are coated with chocolate. The Venus bar is coated with both white and dark chocolate to produce a swirled effect. A material shortage of an ingredient in the Comet bar limits production to 300 batches per day. Production and sales data are presented in the following table. Both candy bars are produced in batches of 200 bars.

Management believes that Deru Chocolate can sell all of its daily production of both the Venus and Comet bars. Other data follow.

Required:

1. 1. Formulate the objective function and all of the constraints in order to maximize contribution margin. Be sure to define the variables.
2. 2. How many batches of each type of candy bar (Venus and Comet) should be produced to maximize the total contribution margin?
3. 3. Calculate the contribution margin at the optimal solution.