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“If, at first, you do succeed, try to hide your astonishment.”
~ Los Angeles Times Syndicate
Imagine someone wants to open a gourmet vegetarian take-out bar in cowboy country. This writer will play the role of an entrepreneur-to-be and write the business plan in first-person voice. Let's see how it plays out.
1) Executive Summary
Having been a vegetarian since 1980, I've realized untold nutritional and health benefits from this diet. Alas though, since nutty days of hippie vegetarian burgers, mainstream diners have not embraced vegetarian eating as heartily as eating meat. Luckily, the tide is turning. My company name will clearly communicate my raison d'etre to be in business - Vegetarian Vignettes: Tasty Take-outs & Delicacies.
My personal vision is to share how tasty vegetarian gourmet food is. And in the process, debunk myths about how unpalatable meatless meals are. Plus support local growers.
My community-wide mission is to realize this vision with a vegetarian take-out place. No seating. Standing room only. In a small space to save rent and employee overheads.
I'm envisioning the first 6-9 months of drop dead hard work and barely breaking even.
Early goals for first 6 months:
Learn portion size control and costing.
Operational hazards to learn and overcome—from equipment breakdowns to efficient cooking methods to save on energy consumption.
Nurture supplier connections facilitating win-win partnerships on both sides.
Discover customer likes and dislikes to better serve their needs.
Competitive analysis—no quality gourmet take-out for 100-plus miles in cowboy country, let alone a vegetarian café; serve delicious gourmet food that folks are happy to drive out to get; use only quality organic ingredients; prepare food with joy and gratitude so these intangible ingredients flavor the dishes in extra ways.
I've been a loving mom in cooking my heart out for my family. I will, too, for my business as I'm passionate about serving foods that heal with positive energy.
Revisit business plan after three months to tweak according to real-life conditions.
2) Owner Bios
I've always believed in eating well, by cooking well. I believe food is medicine. Cooking and eating good food not only nourishes the body but also heals the spirit.
I've written two cookbooks that have sold over 10,000 copies. Created, wrote and published the first vegetarian newsletter in 1988. I'm very confident my culinary background will serve me well with my gourmet take-out business.
3) Company Description
Products: For the first 6 months, we'll offer 15 entrees, 15 sides and 15 desserts. Ova-lacto vegetarian dishes. 75-90 percent organic ingredients. Pre-packaged whole trays and individual portions to save time serving individual customers.
Store location: Close to office complexes on the east side of town.
Hours: Tuesday—Saturday, 10—6.
Catering services will be available.
Employees: owner + one part-timer.
Costing: Somewhat uneven until I learn the nuts and bolts to balance supplier costs, operating costs such as environment-friendly take-out containers plus other fixed and variable costs.
4) Competitive Analysis
Undoubtedly, this business is a monopoly serving vegetarian food in cowboy country. However, a bigger draw will be tasty gourmet food that appeals to everyone.
Convenient location with free parking; overflow parking at nearby office complexes.
Small storefront, but large on amenities—cleanliness, ventilation, light, cheerful staff.
5) Pricing Strategy
Reasonable prices + good food = winning recipe for massive sales volume.
Samples will be costed out as promo/advertising expenses.
6) Marketing Strategy
Branding—upscale, clean, stylish gourmet-to-go image, understated peach-white colors for marketing collateral and décor, chic logo.
Marketing collateral—take-out menus that double as flyers, striking storefront sign.
Create a media kit for print and broadcast media.
Get local celebrity endorsements—mayor, food editor, society hostess, star athlete, etc.
Suggest hosting a weekly food talk show on Radio KOWBZ showcasing local farmers, apiarists, vintners, bakers, etc. for listeners and food community- everyone wins!
Pass out free samples at special events—wine & food festivals, etc.
7) Operations Strategy
Scaling operations to 1.5 persons (owner + part-timer) minimizes employee overheads.
Eagle-eye observations for cost-cutting tactics, without sacrificing gourmet-quality food.
Learn on the fly, so to speak.
8) Financial Projections
Initially, bank request only for a business line of credit. Will seek loans for expansion later, if warranted.
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Six months later, Vegetarian Vignettes: Tasty Take-outs & Delicacies has succeeded beyond my wildest dreams. We are a roaring success! People love our delicious food. They can't believe vegetarian food can taste so divine. Plus healthy and affordable compared to red meat.
Let's take a BIG step in writing a business plan for Vegetarian Vignettes to secure a $50,000 loan to meet expansion demands. As we learned, it's important for my cover page to look crisp, clean and professional. The actual pages of my business plan follows.
BUSINESS PLAN
For
VEGETARIAN VIGNETTES:
TASTY TAKE-OUTS & DELICACIES
Vegetarian Vignettes
123 Rio Bravo
Anytown, MI 48001
491-123-4567
E-mail: vv@eatmail.com
Susie Waitress, Owner & Chef
Mary Waitress, Angel Investor & Susie's Mom
May 8, 2009
Table of Contents
1. Executive Summary
2. Company Description
3. Competitive Analysis
4. Marketing & Pricing Strategy
5. Operations Strategy
6. Financial Projections |
Executive Summary
Market
According to Healthy Vegetarian Gourmet (a fictitious magazine that's the leading specialty mag in its genre for purposes of this exercise), readers have been avidly trying out vegetarian recipes and healthful dining options, and innovative ideas for entertaining guests. This magazine's April 2009 survey showed a 45% increase in readers clamoring for recipes and ideas for gourmet vegetarian dining and entertaining.
At Vegetarian Vignettes, we've certainly seen this to be true. Business has grown 700% in six months. We serve not just any veggie dish but authentic gourmet food using organic ingredients. People don't mind paying for quality, especially when they feel better eating our delicious food.
Owner Bios, Vision & Mission
Bios: Susie Waitress has been a keen advocate of good food for good moods, from the ground up. Her family just loves her homegrown veggie and fruit dishes. Susie has seen how good food is indeed the best and most natural form of health insurance she can provide for her family. Her kids are averse to eating processed foods. The difference truly is in the taste experience. That's how her customers feel, too.
“Vegetarian Vignettes provides dinners for our family at least three times a week. It's great, nutritious food at reasonable prices. Terrific value!” ~ Annie Baxter, customer
Susie inherited her natural eating ways from her mom, Mary Waitress. Mary has been Susie's angel investor from the git-go, as well as consultant-adviser.
Both mother and daughter have close to 100 years of combined vegetarian culinary expertise in growing Vegetarian Vignettes. Already, Susie's two daughters, Amber and June are showing a keen participation in helping with the business.
Vision: These four ladies keep an inter-generational family enterprise growing successfully in serving a niche market for delicious vegetarian food; and in the process, rabidly debunking myths about “rabbit food.”
Mission: Our mission is being realized in serving customers with healthy, tasty vegetarian food. We're growing so much, so fast—700 percent in 6 months! We need to expand. 80 percent of our customers are meat-eaters. Amazing!
Company Description
Vegetarian Vignettes will expand our small take-out counter into a casual sit-down café for customers to relax and enjoy their take-out food. No table service for now, though, because it's too labor-intensive and expensive to hire more than four full-time employees.
We'll expand from selling 15 entrees, 15 side dishes and 15 desserts to:
30 entrees, 30 sides and 20 desserts.
Our store location will remain the same. But space will increase from 500 square feet to 1,500 square feet by incorporating the recently empty space next door.
Hours: Tuesday—Saturday, 10-6.
Competitive Analysis
Customers drive from miles away for Vegetarian Vignettes' take-outs. Many call ahead to place orders for their favorite foods. Our confidence for expansion comes from:
1) Superior quality prepared food sourced from local growers—which in turn helps our farmers and the local economy.
2) Our mission to serve healthy, tasty food is highly popular with customers.
3) That's because the quality of our vegetarian dishes is a classy knockout clear across the board—including delis and restaurants serving non-vegetarian food.
Pricing Strategy
We keep quality and prices fair and reasonable. Customers know we offer quality and value. On top of good food that nourishes and heals body and spirit.
Marketing
It's amazing how little we've spent on advertising. Instead, the most incredible, credible and effective way customers learn of us is through word-of-mouth advertising. Bottomline: Treat your customers nice and they'll take care of you, too.
We'll also promote healthy vegetarian eating with cooking classes, for Susie to host a weekly radio talk show on tasty cooking for healthy eating—and invite other food producers to showcase their expertise, too.
Operations
Owner Susie Waitress is the sole full-time and over-time employee. But, she loves what she's doing, so she doesn't mind the long hours. Her mom Mary pops in daily to help. Daughters Amber and June help out whenever they can with special shopping trips and cleaning chores at the end of the day. But with the expansion, we'll need to hire regular two full-time employees.
Financials
Vegetarian Vignettes needs $50,000 for a short-term loan to renovate the new space and lease-to-own commercial ovens and equipment. Owners, Susie and Mary, will each put up $15,000. For the remaining $20,000 we respectfully request: 1) a $10,000 loan and 2) a $10,000 line of credit from our bank. We aim to pay back the bank loan in 6 months. We pledge our personal assets as collateral.
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Company Description
Company Location
Vegetarian Vignettes will remain at our original location. Customers can still reach us easily with free parking. The new 1,000-square foot seating area will accommodate lunchtime diners from nearby office complexes and drop-in regulars. We will continue with catering special events—another effective avenue for advertising that's also very lucrative.
Enhancements to this new space include: a fresh coat of peach and white paint, furniture to accommodate 50-65 guests and exterior landscaping for a peaceful and tasteful ambiance. Decorative items will give the room a chic look and feel that's also warm, inviting and welcoming. There will be 2 new restrooms.
The kitchen will greet a new commercial oven, worktops and energy-saving cooking equipment and appliances.
Gourmet Vegetarian Menu
Entrees will increase to 30—a mix of comfort food featuring macaroni n' cheese and ethnic dishes such as tandoori tofu, Thai red and green curries and Sicilian lasagne.
Side dishes will increase to 30—for example, arugala-beet salad, tabouleh and twice-baked potatoes with melted cheese topping.
Desserts will increase to 20—our famous dark gold cream cheese brownies will now offer variations with raspberry, mocha and chipotle chili flavors; fudgy chocolate pudding will have pistachio nut and Turkish Delight variations; and other spontaneous specials of the day using seasonal produce.
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Competitive Analysis
No other deli, café or restaurant specializes in purely vegetarian, non-meat cooking for hundreds of miles or any where close to Vegetarian Vignettes in our part of cowboy country. This is our core specialty—gourmet vegetarian food using the finest, freshest local ingredients loved even by carnivores.
As Healthy Vegetarian Gourmet magazinepointed out with a recent reader survey, health-conscious eaters are clamoring to learn more about this healthful lifestyle. We are thinking of adding value to this new-wave interest by offering cooking classes on the days we're closed, Sunday and Monday. Vegetarian cooking classes will add revenue plus promote this style of cooking for nutritious eating. It's amazing how simple it is to gradually switch to more nourishing eating habits.
A good friend of Susie's who has a vegetarian restaurant in the Fremont neighborhood of Seattle has been reporting similar customer interest. So has a friend who owns a similar vegetarian diner in Chicago. Each has owned their purely vegetarian restaurants for over 25 years. There's definitely a market niche for delicious vegetarian cooking!
As we indicated earlier, 80 % of our customers are non-vegetarians. This tells us we're on the right track with our core competency—tasty take-outs that are cuts above competition, including steak houses so plentiful in cowboy country.
Trader Joe's, a national food chain, has approached Vegetarian Vignettes to formulate commercial recipes for our dark gold cream cheese brownies. More brownie points for going mainstream with this innovative food conglomerate! We'll offer more vegetarian items to Trader Joe's later. Now, that's mainstream acclaim for “rabbit food.” |
Marketing & Pricing Strategy
Marketing Strategy
Vegetarian Vignettes will embrace an overall marketing strategy that informs, educates and motivates non-vegetarians and vegetarians alike of the benefits of this healthy cooking and eating lifestyle. Plus include related activities such as portion-size control, exercise and meditation to encourage a preventive lifestyle for happy living.
We're not here to preach, but inspire others to be conscious of healthy eating to enhance quality of living.
Our location can't be beat with all that foot-traffic coming in from the office complexes nearby. Free parking is also a convenient marketing boon.
Target Customers
Educated professionals who care about healthy eating, and who have the disposable income to appreciate and pay for organic and gourmet vegetarian food.
Pricing
Since our suppliers are local growers, we don't end up paying for trucking fees for produce that's over 1,500 miles away (which, by the way, is the average miles traveled by American-grown baby carrots, bib lettuce and other produce items to reach our dining tables). Here's a cost-cutting secret: Susie and Mary use produce from their own gardens. In an industry where food wastage is huge, we are so fortunate to prevail on our own fresh, garden-to-table supplies. That's why our prices are so very reasonable! Quality and affordability are our revenue-enhancers here at Vegetarian Vignettes.
Sales Projections
Based on a phenomenal 700% growth in the first six months of our take-out business, we anticipate these sales figures for a five-year forecast:
2009: $350,000
2010: $500,000
2011: $750,000
2012: $1,000,000
2013: $1,500,000
We don't anticipate the same initial growth spurt but more modest rates to support our realistic figures. On the other hand, who knows how pleasantly surprised we'll be?
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Financials
Financial Plan
Vegetarian Vignettes will anticipate and fund growth through cash flow sales. We'll repay our loans to the bank first, followed by repayments to Mary and Susie Waitress.
Based on the past six months, cash flow has been healthy enough to sustain regular loan repayments. We're very grateful!
Break-even Analysis
Based on our monthly financial reports for the first six months generated by Quickbooks accounting software (which, by the way, is a great friend of every small business owner!), we had an amazing gross profit margin of 80 percent—even after factoring in fixed and variable costs.
Projected Expenses
The profit margin will be reduced with hiring two full-time employees for our expanded space. Quickbooks is projecting a more modest 50 percent gross profit margin. Even so, we're confident that it serves our business goals and further expands our customer base with hiring employees. And, we'll still be operating with a profitable cash flow to repay loans regularly.
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For more examples you may also want to search for the term “free sample business plans” for similar samples.
Editorial Note:
It's best for each business to come up with its own Profit & Loss (or Income) Statement, Cash Flow Statement and Balance Sheet. Your accountant is the appropriate person to consult for realistic and relevant figures in forecasting projections for your company. If seeking a bank loan, include them with your business plan package
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