For Fast Foods Start-up - Business Plan Example

Planning and Resourcing Executive Summary The of the fast food enterprise is Emad Food Enterprise. The food enterprise will serve a wide range of people ranging from high class Italians, British people, tourists from Italy and other places who wish to taste authentic Italian food in London. In addition, the enterprise will offer education on food programs and mechanisms of solving food insecurity and alleviating suffering. The sale of food will be to increase sources of funds. Emad Food Enterprise will be located at Marylebone Lane, London. However, the enterprise will have various branches to cater for populations at the community level. This is because of the presence of various financial firms’ and brokerages and means many potential people with refined taste who visit this location over lunch and dinner hours, will raise funds. The branches will serve the community and promote food programs (Forth Sector Development, 2007). Emad Food Enterprise is a sole proprietorship that falls within food industry in London. The enterprise will develop a unique business operational model that will minimize overhead costs. The provided fast food products by Emad Food Enterprise will be fast served high quality meals. The meals will cater for multiples and variety and will be freshly delivered faster than any other competitor in the industry. The domestic market, in the food industry, for fast foods is large and segmented representing the top most choices within the market. Emad Food Enterprise will target the central business district that gets crowded during lunch hours with high income individuals for funding the enterprise through sales. There are also financial firms, brokerages, shopping malls, local businesses, weekend markets and university compasses all over the place, which will be the targets to provide potential market to Emad Food Enterprise. The owner of Emad Food Enterprise has significant qualification and experience in fields of advertising, hospitality industry, and business management. This will ensure that the management of Emad Food Enterprise is well and productive. Emad Food Enterprise has good financials and this will grow with large positive cash flow. Revenues will as well grow annually as will be stated in the financial plan section. This string financial plan will ensure that Emad Food Enterprise remains attractive. The enterprise needs approximately £ 17000 from private investors. From this, as charity, i will be able to input £ 500 in year one. As seen with businesses in food industry, the investors may expect good returns from the second year of business operation (Fowler, 1997). Emad Food Enterprise will operate through trainings on food programs and offering food to the needy, as well as selling quality meals to customers. The sector however has experienced a slow and sluggish growth majorly due to the rich tourists and business people, coming to the town majorly for business reasons. The purpose of this business plan is to maximize profits through a fast food enterprise. Emad Food Enterprise is committed to its fast food business. Emad Food Enterprise is likely to succeed due to the experience that the owner has as mentioned earlier. Through this experience, the owner will be able to raise good funds, attract customers, and increase the confidence of both the interested investors and customers. The Emad Food Enterprise has a mission to provide the customers with wonderful and fresh dining experience with authentic Italian beverages and cuisines with the taste and fragrance of mainland Italy. The unique creative idea is that all the beverages and dishes will be that of Italian cuisine from mainland Italy, and other common foods necessary for poverty prone areas. This will help in attracting more customers for raising funds and curb food insecurity respectively. Introduction This paper will present a business plan for start-up enterprise selling fast foods within the food industry by means of food processing and retail. This idea of starting up a social food enterprise came due to the problem of food shortage faced by the internally displaced persons and poverty prone areas. My motivation to start up the social enterprise was the urge to help alleviate suffering and advice communities on how to improve food security and develop mechanisms of food production among themselves. My approach is distinctive in that, majority of food enterprises are set to sell food to the people, however, my approach will include both selling food to customers and educating communities through food programs and promoting food production as well as championing for food security among the communities. I stand a chance to carry out this program efficiently because I grew up in a community where food insecurity was the order of the day, i also have qualifications in business management and have worked in five star hotels before. I can therefore manage the food social enterprise effectively and efficiently to ensure the community gains from it. This is the reason for developing this plan. Business with no plans experience slow growth with minimal annual profits. Very small business enterprises do not necessarily need a business plan because of lack of complexity and size of the business. The food industry is a global collective of diverse and complex business supplying food energy consumed by large populations all over the world. Food industry captures almost everyone except subsistence farmers who rely on the yield of their farms. I am venturing into the food industry because of its wide scope, which will ensure maximum sales and support to the communities with food insecurity. Recent studies document that food industry is wide and consist of variety of services including regulation of food quality, lobbying activities in the industry, food security, and food safety; nutritional education, food technology research and development, agriculture, financial services, food processing, distribution through wholesale or retail and marketing. The food enterprise will sell fast food by means of retail and food processing and promote food programs where we will educate people on food insecurity and how to maximise food production. This enterprise will use many methods of food production. Some of the methods will be; one off production in which customer makes specification with every order before preparation for delivery, batch production to take care of the large market size with a variety of food products. Mass production method will also be used due to the mass market for the identical food products, and just in time production, where the customer chooses what they need to be incorporated in their foodstuffs and then the chefs freshly make the food according to the specifications. This is the kind of enterprise I need to develop a business plan for and this paper will capture all the content necessary ranging from the executive summary, product description, market and competitors analysis, marketing plan, organizational plan, operational plan, financial plan, and a critical evaluation of the industry. Hence, this paper seeks to develop a business plan for a social food enterprise. Vision Statement The vision of the Eman Food Enterprise is to become a world class food social enterprise the serves the best to their customers, and offers the best solutions to food insecurity through promoting food programs and educating communities on how to maximise food production amongst themselves. The enterprise is committed to quality, courtesy, empathy and social responsibility. Mission Statement The mission of Emad Food Enterprise is to educate communities on food productions, and promote food programs aimed at solving cases of food insecurity among poverty prone communities; and to prepare and serve the best meals to its customers. Aim & Objectives The aims and objectives of Emad Food Enterprise are as follows: To prepare and serve fast foods to the potential customers in order to raise more funds To educate communities on maximizing food production through community participation in practice in order to reduce poverty To curb food insecurity through promotion of food programs among the communities To support internally displaced persons through offering food products to them Background The Emad Food Enterprise is a social enterprise that offers support to poverty prone communities, through food production trainings; and to enhance food programs in order to curb the problem of food insecurity. The enterprise came into fruition through the support of friends with the same focus on community problems. The enterprise will be located at Marylebone Lane, London. However, the enterprise will have various branches to cater for populations at the community level. World Food Programs has tried to carry out these functions but it has not been successful especially at the community level. This is because of the large number of population facing food insecurity and poverty (Escobar, 2007). Constraints The Emad Food Enterprise may face various challenges due to intense competition from food enterprises already set up. This will be a challenge because we target customers for sales in order to raise training funds. The competitors have also set customer loyalty since they have been in the market earlier. Populations are also reluctant to accept the newly upcoming enterprises due to the fear of the unknown. This may mean lack of their involvement and participation, which is important to this enterprise. Funds may also be a constraint. People may view the enterprise as any other food store that is out for profits (Crane, 2010). However, we plan to tackle these constraints through massive marketing strategies, which are in the marketing plan. We will train the community on the benefit of the enterprise. Team/Organisational Plan Emad Food Enterprise will be led by Emad Uddin Ahmed, who will remain the CEO of the social enterprise and report to the investors and the board who also help in the running of the food enterprise. Emad Uddin Ahmed will be responsible for overseeing the CIO, CFO, Human Resources, and Food departments. Emad Uddin Ahmed is qualified with operational and strategic experience to handle the business well and management of the enterprise. The Emad Food Enterprise will in future need a highly qualified staff which will grow steadily as needed. Emad Uddin Ahmed will work with the management team: the CEO or director, marketing and food technology director, operations manager, and finance director, who form the board of the enterprise. The rest of the staff will consist of waiters and waitresses, cooks and guards, food educationists among other volunteers specialised in promotion of food programs. The management team will develop policies and procedures for business operations and management. Monitoring and evaluation will be done periodically to assess whether the enterprise is meeting the intended objectives effectively. Some food processing and production will be outsourced to competitive manufacturers. Raw materials will be sources from the same manufacturers. This is because of the competitive nature of the market. This will form the secret of Emad Food Enterprise to fast delivery of fast food products to their customers after order. The preparation and the blanching process of raw food products make a better part of this secret. This service is scheduled to be overseen by the master chef team who adhere to the strict regulations of health. All stocking, ordering and quality controls will be managed through a computers based system which will enable the patterns to be monitored and evaluated in order to keep the efficiency of ordering and reducing wastage. Details of the product The primary food product of Emad Food Enterprise is high quality fast-served Italian style and ordinary individual meals. The meals have a flexible degree of customization that suit the taste of the customers and match the needs of the community. Emad Food Enterprise is specifically designed to produce meals within the shortest time possible to meet the demands of the customers usually on a hurry. The cooks will be able to cook the meals within the shortest time possible in front of the customers using fresh ingredients. For funding reasons, every meal in Emad Food Enterprise is freshly cooked, taste sensation, and served hot in a cardboard pail convenient for the customers. Customers are mostly invited to create their own orders and specifications of the meal. In comparison with the meals that the competitors offer, Emad Food Enterprise provides tasty, fresh, and nutritious alternative meals. Because this is a start up, Emad Food Enterprise may be slow at the point of order yes, but we guarantee more nutritious and fresher meals. One secret that Emad Food Enterprise will use is the hygienically sealed pre-blanches vegetables and meats in a common pail to be received by the customer eventually. With this, the operator cooks will simply remove them from fridge and combine with sauce within the wok, and the meal is set. Analysis of market and key competitors The competitors in this market span the dominants of the market such as vendor foods like kebabs, sandwich and sushi bars. However, if a customer needs the best, then Emad Food Enterprise is the place to be, although other competitors may be broader than Emad Food Enterprise, we emphasize on the speed of preparing meals which will be achieved through the use of standard pre-cooked, bland and oily Italian fast food that satisfies our time poor clients. Other competitors such as Hot work takes considerably long to prepare their meals and hence we expect to attract the customers who need fast food to get back to work. The enterprise will attract more customers due to its humanitarian nature (Edwards, 2008). Emad Food Enterprise looks to exploit all clients ranging from the busy business people and largish tourists who need high quality fast foods freshly served. Emad Food Enterprise will use variety of market entry barriers against competitors who would wish to join in the market. Some of those barriers will be the distinctive fast food modality available, with preparation times that cannot be matched, healthy, fast, fresh, price, and quality competitive alternatives, lower capital and overhead costs, targeted large segment market that is not exploited currently by the competitors, and the new identifiable brand, solid management and a professional approach (DFID, 2003). The consumers of Emad Food Enterprise fast food products are those of medium to high income people who have fresh and healthy orientation of lifestyle. The initial phase of the business plan will be to improve the awareness of the product brand within the clients matching this profile. After which the other customers and business people will be targeted with the marketing strategies and techniques. As mentioned earlier, university campuses and local businesses will also be targeted for potential clients. The products will finally be extended to the customers who are interested in low cost, but value adding fast food for corporate and private events. The size of the market is considerably broad and is fast growing with exciting product brands. Italian foods represent a good part of the market revenue. Although this market has a high saturation of potential sellers and buyers, it is greatly segmented on style, quality, price, and modality which present the opportunity for the niche products in the market such as Emad Food Enterprise fast food products. In a SWOT analysis of the Emad Food Enterprise in the food industry, we will be able to identify the strengths, weaknesses, opportunities, and threats of the industry as already summarized in the above paragraph. The strengths of the Emad Food Enterprise include the fact that the owner has good hospitality and managerial qualifications as mentioned earlier. The owner has also worked in other five star hotels practicing good cooking techniques. The location of the Emad Food Enterprise as mentioned earlier is within the central business district and attracts many customers. The weakness of the Emad Food Enterprise may be attributed to the fact that it is just starting and may be impacted negatively with market forces and the effects of the unknown. The reduction in sales in the sector due to high costs and recession may also be a weakening factor (Chouhan and Lusane, 2004). Other competing restaurants also pose a weakness on the part of Emad Food Enterprise. The opportunities of Emad Food Enterprise are however much, this is due to the gap of fast food restaurants within the central business district offering high quality Italian foods served fresh. Younger people will also be attracted to the food enterprise. Home deliveries and takeaways will also encourage customers to visit Emad Food Enterprise. On the other hand, Emad Food Enterprise will face threats such as stiff competition from the nearby restaurants that have been in business for long and have built loyalty to their customers (Callaghan, 2000). Some of the competitors here include: Galvin Bistrot de Luxe, Bar Trattoria Semplice, LAutre Pied, Le Relais de Venise lentrecôte, Locanda Locatelli, Il Baretto, de Ville, among others. In an industry analysis using PESTEL, we will be able to identify the macro forces in the external environment of Emad Food Enterprise. The political factors here include the large number of sub categories such as Indian Italian, Chinese, Thai, Continental, and Mexican. These result into political issues among restaurants based on patriotism in order to woo customers of their own nationality. Economic factors include the recession effect which the market is still recovering from. This means that people spend less on food and entertainment (Bryson, 1995). Social factors include the exotic nature of Emad Food Enterprise that people will regard as a privilege to be served at; on the other hand, young people prefer disco places with dance floors. Technology factors will include the advanced use of technology via internet to market, promote and advertise products. The environmental factors will include the energy saving methods and waste disposal challenges as well as the use of organic products within the industry. Finally the legal aspects in the food industry such as regulations by the government on food quality and safety may deter the Emad Food Enterprise from producing certain fast foods (Bruce et al., 2009). Marketing Plan The marketing objective of the Eman Food enterprise is to position itself in such a way that its consumers remain confident when purchasing and consuming their healthy and fresh fast food product. The Eman Food enterprise enhances this through the overall experience in delivery. Therefore its marketing objectives will be to: establish rapidly an identifiable brand, to position itself as a tasty, fresh and healthy traditional fast food alternative, to maintain gross margins at high levels on the fast food products, and to capitalize on its recognized brand via expansion through the use of diversification of products that will include supermarket placement and catering. The enterprise will also position itself as a humanitarian organization with an aim of promoting food production through food programs in order to cur food insecurity. This will attract more investors and customers (Borzaga and Defourney, 2001). The marketing strategy of Eman Food enterprise will be focused on its location and is expected to expand in three years. The promotion is through a public campaign via publications and media before the launch of the product. The owner will use contacts in the media industry for this reason. Financial Plan The basis of break-even analysis and the cash flows is the assumption that the investors will invest £3000 to this start-up. This is asymmetric information, where there is a difficulty in gaining sufficient information by the lender in order to make a good decision. A solution is to develop a working relationship with the borrower. There are many expenses in the initial stages of the business operation (Biekart and Fowler, 2009). The income and expenditure account of Eman Food enterprise will be as follows: INCOME AND EXPENDITURE ACCOUNT INCOMING RESOURCES Year 1 Year 2 Year 3 TOTAL Grants  1000  1000  1000 £ 3000 Contracts  700  500  600 £ 1800 Donations  1500  500  1000 £ 2000 Gifts in Kind  500  300  200 £ 1000 Membership Subscriptions and Sponsorship  500  500  500 £ 1500 Fundraising Events  1200  800  1000 £ 3000 Sale of Goods or Services  1300  1700  2000 £ 5000 Letting of Property  700  700  600 £ 2000 Loan Finance  2000  1000  500 £ 3500 Bank Interest  500  250  125 £ - Total Incoming Resources £ 9900 £ 7250 £ 7525 £ 24675           RESOURCES EXPENDED Year 1 Year 2 Year 3 TOTAL Salaries, National Insurance & Pensions  1500  1500  1500 £ 4500 Recruitment  500  300  200 £ 1000 Staff Travel  600  400  300 £ 1300 Supervision  300  200  100 £ 600 Governance Costs (Board Training and Expenses)  500  300  200 £ 1000 Premises Costs  700  500  300 £ 2000 Heating and Lighting  200 200  200 £ 600 Repairs and Maintenance  100  100  100 £ 300 Printing, Postage & Stationery  100  100  100 £ 300 Communication (Telephone & Internet)  300  300  300 £ 900 Legal and Professional Fees  200 100  100 £ 400 Accountacy and Audit Costs  200  200  200 £ 600 Insurance  300  200  200 £ 700 Publications and Subscriptions  200  200  200 £ 600 Bank Charges  100  100  100 £ 300 Consultancy Fees  200  200  200 £ 600 Publicity  300  200  100 £ 600 Volunteer Expenses  100  100  100 £ 300 Computers  200  100  100 £ 400 Fax  50  50  50 £ 150 Photocopiers & Printers  50  50  50 £ 150 Phones  50  25  25 £ 100 Total Resources Expended £ 6750 £ 5525 £ 4725 £ 17000           SURPLUS/DEFICIT £ 3150 £ 1725 £ 2800 £ 7675 Conclusion In a critical evaluation, the above chapters have given a description of the Emad Food Enterprise business plan and the significant parts of the plan including executive summary, product description, marketing plan; organizational plan, operational plan, and financial plan. The success however depends on a critical success factors that help the projects to be prosperous. This paper illustrated a business plan for a fast food in London. A depressed market does not support restaurants, in most cases the expensive food enterprises. The sector has also experienced a decline in growth because majority of people tend to spend less on food. The sector is still suffering from the effects of economic recession, which has not disappeared yet. The economy is gradually growing and if Eman Food enterprise is set up now, it will attract customers and obtain a good reputation in the coming months. This business plan has presented an executive summary, product description, marketing plan, organizational plan, operational plan, and financial plan for the Eman Food enterprise. List of References Biekart, K. and Fowler, A., 2009, Civic Driven Change: A Guide to the Basics, Institute of Social Studies, The Hague. Available at: http://www.iss.nl/Portals/Civic-Driven-Change-Initiative/Civic-Driven-Change-A-concise-guide-to-the-basics Borzaga, C and Defourney, J. (Eds) 2001, The Emergence of Social Enterprise, Routledge, London Bruce, I. et al (2009?), Tools for Tomorrow: A Practical Guide to Strategic Planning for Voluntary Organisations, NCVO, London. Bryson, J (1995) Strategic planning for public and nonprofit organisations: A guide to strengthening and sustaining organizational achievement Jossey-Bass, San Francisco Callaghan, J (nd) 2000, Costing for contracts: A practical guide for voluntary organisations Directory of Social Change, London Chouhan, K and Lusane, C (2004) Black voluntary and community sector funding: Its impact on civic engagement and capacity building Joseph Rowntree Foundation, York Civicus, Writing a Funding Proposal: Civicus Toolkit. Available at www.civicus.org/toolkits/fundraising-and-financial-management Crane, F.G. (2010) Marketing for Entrepreneurs: Concepts and Applications for New Ventures, SAGE, London. www.companies-house.gov.uk/infoAndGuide/companyRegistration.shtml DFID, (2003) Tools for Development: Version 15.1, available online at: www.dfid.gov.uk/Documents/publications Edwards, M. (2008), Small Change: Why Business Won’t Save the World, Berret-Koehler, San Francisco Escobar, A. (2007), “Planning” in Sachs, W. (ed) (2007) The Development Dictionary, Zed Books, London. Forth Sector Development (2007) Business Planning Guide to Development of Social Enterprise - downloadable document via http://socialenterpriselive.com/supplements/business-planning-guide-developing-social-enterprise . Fowler, A. (1997), Striking a Balance, Earthscan, London (Ch. 6, Mobilising Financial Resources) Read More