Business Strategies - Vegan Food Truck - Example

A BUSINESS PLAN FOR A VEGAN FOOD TRUCK Student’s Name Code + Course Name Professor’s Name University Name City, State Date Contents 1.0 Executive Summary In the current fast pacing world, healthy eating habits are being foregone due to the inaccessibility of ready healthy food. This is, in turn, causing health related diseases like diabetes and obesity in the UK. Therefore, The X Vegan Food Truck has decided to launch its operations to bridge the gap between the consumers need for healthy food and their accessibility.The X Vegan food truck business will provide the facilities to sell food and drinks in the UK. The food truck will be conveniently situated at a place where it will be readily available to customers. It will not only build The Palms The X Vegan food truck business will have a £200,000 sales target in the first year with a projected growth of 5.3% based on the projected hotel industry growth and overall economic growth forecasts. The business will require an initial funding of £65,000 to offset the buying of the van and put the required facilities in place. Our marketing strategy will help build a strong brand name and identity for customers’ brand loyalty which will culminate into customer attraction and retention for sales and profit maximization. Creation of a point of relevant differentiation and business expansion are two of the major things we have set out to achieve. We intend to be a customer-centric business with a strong customer relations culture which is embedded and rooted in the business across all levels. With these strategies in place, the achievement of the set goals and objectives will be realized. 2.0 Mission Statement The X Vegan Food Truck’s mission is to be the most affordable and easiest accessible mobile food supplier of wholesome, healthy food that will steer customers towards an organic and plant based food culture. This will be accomplished by offering high-quality meals that go beyond the usual uninspiring green vegetables associated with vegan eating by offering colorful and abundantly vibrant wholesome meals. Our aim is to become a brand that is synonymous with healthy, palatable and affordable upscale food on wheels by bringing the best hotel experience to the streets. 3.0 Objectives To increase our client base by 20% in the first quarter by offering high-quality products at reasonable prices. To venture into new markets niches by the next one year by adding at least two food trucks and employing more staff. To increase brand awareness by 10% in the first three months through search engine optimization and engaging professional web designers. 4.0 The Management Team Chief Executive officer-Michael Hale Hale was born in a family of hoteliers where the mother was a head Chef at a five-star hotel and his father a CEO of a major food supply chain. He has a background in law and business management and development (with honors).Previously, Hale worked for as a lawyer for Goodman and advocates, but his love for the hotel industry saw him join The Hilton group of hotels in 2012 as part of the management team. Under his leadership, the hotel won four consecutive London’s hotel of the year awards. He is a food enthusiast who is passionate about healthy and fun eating. He presently serves as a board member for the International Youth Foundation an organization that deals with harnessing and building young people's potential. Marketing Manager and human resource-Michelle Campbell Ms. Campbell, the co-founder of The X Vegan Food Truck, has worked in the food truck business since 2012 in a management capacity. She has degrees in Finance and human resource management. Ms.Campbell will be assisting across all levels of Management within the business, with the primary focus being marketing and human resource management. She has previously worked in Finance and Business Management roles at the Wills and Shannon food truck and has extensive experience in sales and marketing of the food truck business having been in the industry for the past four years. Ms. Campbell will be responsible for developing, executing and evaluating new plans for sales maximization as well as the hiring and firing process and all employee related issues. She will be responsible for marketing the x truck brand, represent the company in strategic meetings and map out the sales and marketing strategy of the company. 5.0 The Product Process In today’s fast pacing busy world, the need for healthy conveniently accessible bites is a dire necessity (Mintzel, 2013). With students rushing between classes, employees rushing between shifts and random passer-bys walking miles to get food, the dial a fast food meal option sounds more appealing (Weber, 2012). Between the rush and the unhealthy eating patterns, millions of people are getting closer to being obese if not becoming more obese a life-threatening condition that is affecting people across all ages (Mintzel, 2011). Food truck X will be the bridge between the need for a healthy meal and the limited time our clients get to grab one. We will bring healthy and scrumptious meals at our customers' places of work, study, and residence. Our personal struggles of juggling between our jobs and healthy eating are what has inspired the idea of The Vegan Food Truck X. Our product range will entail a healthy holistic menu with a variety of meals to choose from. Our focus on a more compassionate animal-free menu will include fresh juices, coffee as well as other hot and cold drinks (Mintzel, 2011).We will also serve vegetables, Chilli and Nachos; Sweet Potato Latke served on crunchy Seasonal Salad. Our menu will also include Shakes, Cookies, Cottage Pie, Spiced Apple Cake, vegan burgers and hot dogs served with home-made relishes, salads, veggie slaw or hummus and Ice Cream(Weber, 2012).These will be prepared with utmost customer oriented specifications. 6.0 The Target Market Our services will be driven by the desire to achieve customer loyalty for sales and profit maximization (Buck, 2011). The Food Truck X Catering services will be primarily aimed at providing delicious, healthy vegan food from our catering van. Our target market will be the corporate world, students and the public on our food truck radar (Weber, 2012). We will cater in festivals and fairs, Weddings and birthday parties, social events, meetings and office lunches. With the already existent competitors in the market, our unique selling proposition will be affordability and uniquely exclusive colored servings as well as our variety. A market Demographics analysis shows that the total population is estimated at 15,000 people with 80% of the people being either employees or students (Buck, 2011). There are over 30 corporate organizations, three colleges, two universities and five high schools in the locality. The market Psychographics depicts that the area comprises of elites who work in the various companies alongside workers in different family run Enterprises and young people comprising the college and high school going students. There also exists a strong sense of community and a high level of environment consciousness which makes the target market a ready market for our vegan products. Market Behaviors in the locality are characterized by strong close relationships between customers and businesses with the modes of payment being both cash and plastic money (Shelton, 2014). Most establishments operate from 9 a.m. to 6 p.m on weekdays, half days on Saturdays with some remaining closed on Sundays. 7.0 The Marketing Strategy The marketing mix The marketing mix is a marketing concept which employs four marketing tools under the marketing objectives and the target market characteristics. It encompasses the 4 Ps including the product, the price, the place and promotion (Buck, 20110). The X Vegan Food truck will be positioned as a strategically positioned food supplier offering the best food with highly personalized service (Mintzel, 2011). Our focus will be on offering our customers a more personalized and interactive service as part of our point of relevant differentiation (Finch, 2013). Our product will, therefore, be positioned to recognize and reward customer loyalty through excellent customer relations. In the food truck business, the place of business is a critical success determinant (Shelton, 2014). The locality a food truck operates in affects the mobility possibilities and the accessibility of the market. The food truck will be running around the office and school blocks corners for increased visibility and accessibility (Mintzel, 2011). Pricing is imperative in increasing the demand and profitability of the venture. Our pricing mechanism will be differentiated in line with existent market pricing to offer added value to customers at reasonable prices as opposed to discounting which could devalue our products (Buck, 2011). Promotion refers to the various tools an organization uses to communicate with customers to create brand awareness. We will give mass communication through print media in both publications and on the Internet (Williams, 2014). We will also participate in Public relations activities by attending significant local events. Market Segmentation Market segmentation will also be used in our marketing strategy (Buck, 2011). This involves the differentiation of customer clusters to provide goods and services that meet their specific needs (Williams, 2014). This segmentation will be achieved through the analysis of customer needs, attitudes, and lifestyles. There are four major variables used in the marketing segmentation which is the geographic, demographic, psychographic and behavioral variables. Geographical segmentation entails the sub division of the market into different geographical segments like cities, towns or population density (Buck, 2011). Our segmentation will be based on streets (Mintzel, 2011). Demographic segmentation, on the other hand, involves the subdivision the clients based on their age, gender, family size, income, occupation, education, religion, race, and nationality. Our demographic segmentation will fall under students, working class people and the general public (Weber, 2012). Psychographic segmentation involves the segmentation based on the customers’ social class, lifestyle or personality characteristics. The fact that our target market majorly comprises of student and working class people, the psychographic segmentation will be mainly base on the social class which will be substantial in our pricing mechanism (Shelton, 2014). Behavioral segmentation, on the other hand, is based on the subdivision of buyers based on their product knowledge, their attitudes and how they respond to the product (Williams, 2014). The behavioral segmentation will inform us what products are preferable a fact which will be a major cue in the formulation of subsequent campaigns. Relationship marketing Relationship marketing will also be a tool used in our marketing strategy. Relationship marketing places more emphasis on customer retention and satisfaction (Finch, 2013). It will be focused on having our customers from the first day coming back and even referring our products to other customers, therefore, making them our indirect brand ambassadors. Customers can be classified into four groups. The loyal customers who use a product consistently, occasional customers who also buy from competitors, the targeted customers who are yet to purchase the product and those that used to buy a product and for some reason stopped (Buck, 2011).Our aim will be retaining the consistent and regular customers, making the occasional client a regular, compelling the not yet customer to try our product and avoiding losing any customer for any reason (Weber, 2012). We will focus on delivering top notch customer service experience as well as products since we know that a happy customer translates to more sales which in turn will lead to higher profitability (Shelton, 2014). We will train our staff on customer relations skills and have open communication channels for customer feedback which will be critical in customer attraction and retention. Internal Marketing Internal marketing will also be a crucial part of our marketing strategy which will be centered on employee-customer communication (Williams, 2014). The criteria recruit to recruit employees will be based on their levels of communicativeness and motivation. Employees are the determinants of whether a customer will place an order or walk out based on their disposition (Weber, 2012). The goal of internal marketing will be to harness professionalism and product knowledge and the employees’ ability to convey that knowledge to a prospective customer (Shelton, 2014). We aspire to develop a customer satisfaction based service culture by orienting new employees properly and continuously upholding that culture as they go on working with us. 8.0 Operations The truck will be moving from one neighbourhood to the next. It will employ seven people valid employers, and the business will take liability insurance as per the legal requirements and will work in liaison with local banking services for future loan prospects in our projected expansion plans. The truck will comply with all the set health standards and legal business requirements while the employees will receive adequate induction training as well as continued training for best customer experiences.A street trading license will be acquired which will permit our sale on roads, pavements and other areas to which the public have unrestricted access without payment. 9.0 Risk Factors and SWOT Analysis Strengths The location of the business is one of its strengths (Finch, 2013). Its ability to move from one location to the other will ensure that target customers are reached at their places of work, study or conveniently when running their day to day activities. The size of the business is also a major strength. Being a small business, we will have the opportunity to offer a more personalized one on one service to our customers since the employees will have more time to interact with customers (Williams, 2014). This will create a homely welcoming environment for customers while allowing for faster feedback which will enable the business to adapt to customer needs. The proposed marketing strategy is a strength since it will allow for customer segmentation and differentiation (Williams, 2014). This will enable the vegan food truck X to provide more personalized products and services as well as inform the pricing. Weaknesses The small size of the business is also a weakness. The visibility of small businesses is often overshadowed by bigger establishments like hotels in this case (Weber, 2012). The smaller businesses are also often overlooked by customers, so they take a longer time to ground themselves. The small size will, therefore, prove to be a weakness. The initial capital Investment is too high. It will take approval of credit by a local bank to properly fund the initial capital investment to set up the food truck and have it up and running (Mintzel, 2011). Without ready capital to start-up, the business remains just an idea. Opportunities The advancement in technology is a big growth opportunity for the food truck business. Technology is an integral part of the business marketing efforts since it enhances visibility through search engine optimization, blogging, social media interactions and website views as well (Williams, 2014). Advancement in technology will see the distance between the company and its customers bridged and communication enhanced for improved customer relations. With the continuous development of the locality and opening of more schools and businesses, the opportunity of prospective customers presents itself (Williams, 2014).This, therefore, presents an opportunity to make additional sales and maximize the profits. Threats Seasonality is a major threat to the vegan food truck business. In case of adverse weather conditions that could deter the customers from going outdoors, business would be closed (Shelton, 2015). This will lead to loss of customers, and an abrupt change could lead to food prepared in advance going bad. Competition is another threat to the vegan food truck business (Williams, 2014). The presence of several already operational food trucks in the place of business is a challenge since it potentially presents a possibility of losing customers to these competitors. Also, economic threats such as depression and changes in either the macro or micro business environment are a major threat (Williams, 2014). Economic uncertainty is always a threat to all businesses, and they have no control over them. 10.0 The Financial Forecast It will take at least £65,000 to start up the business (Weber, 2012). Sales are estimated to achieve gross revenues of £200,000 during the first year of operation with additional food trucks. Our marketing expenses will be approximately 5.3% of the gross revenue. References Blick, D., 2011. The ultimate small business marketing book, Surrey: Filament Publishing. Finch, B., 2013. "How to write a business plan: because you only have one chance to make a good impression, fourth edition", Mintzer, R., 2011. Start your own food truck business: cart, trailer, kiosk, standard and gourmet trucks, mobile catering, bustaurant, Irvine, CA: Entrepreneur Press. Shelton, H., 2014. The secrets to writing a successful business plan: a pro shares a step-by-step guide to creating a plan that gets results, Rockville, MD: Summit Valley Press. Weber, D., 2012. The food truck handbook: start, grow, and succeed in the mobile food business, Hoboken, NJ: Wiley. Williams, S., 2014. The Financial Times guide to business start up 2015, Harlow, England: Pearson Read More