Business Plan for Diet Food Delivery in Basel Switzerland
Introduction
Healthy living has become the focal point of most food companies as individuals strive to practice and promote healthy lifestyles. Contemporary issues in medical research focus on balanced diet and physical activity as the only means that can be used to promote long-term health (Bonfadelli 289). Following the increasing demands for fast food and the understanding that a growing section of the Swiss population desires to eat and live healthy, the online-based diet and food delivery system will attract consumers from Switzerland. This belief follows the notion that there is a shift from the traditional methods of product promotion to an internet-based merchandising. There is also an understanding that the majority of potential consumers of fasts food products are women who have the desire to either cut weight or improve on the general eating habits.
Basel as an emerging market will provide a wide range of opportunities to start and run a business, particularly in the segment of catering through the use of internet. This is according to the reports released the Swiss Federal Statistical office, which indicated that 84 percent of adults use internet for various purposes. Out of the maximum number of internet users, the statistics revealed that 65 percent are women who search internet to obtain information on healthy lifestyles with only 35 percent being male counterparts (Bonfadelli 66). It was also noted that the country has close to 380 large companies and over 2,000 semi-large companies that advocate for healthy lifestyle among their respective employees. With these statistics, the company management is optimistic of creating a market base that will allow for improved business activities
Therefore, the business plan will focus on Swiss food delivery industry with discussions made on prospects, trends, and opportunities available for maintaining higher competitive advantage. The business plan also focuses on the product, service, and differentiation strategies (porter’s generic) for the internet-based fast food company. Other areas discussed in the business plan include the targeting and expansion strategies, need for licensing, SWOT analysis, and financial planning for a period of three years.
Company Background
The conception of the idea for starting an internet-based fast food company in Swiss fast food industry was motivated by the large number of women searching the Internet to retrieve information on healthy living tips. Even though the company has not been registered according to the Swiss Company Act 2008, there is progress towards licensing and final registration of the company. It is also true that the company has not started selling its food products, but is in the process of establishing a firm foundation for the manufacturing and delivery processes over the internet. Other than selling its products over the website at www.internet-based-fast-food-company.com, the company aims at using its new stand to facilitate sales and provide quick response to customers’ needs. In addition to the women consumers, the company targets small, large, and medium enterprises across the country. The company’s long-term plan entails expanding the overall sale volume, particularly in the educational centers and other institutions within the country. The final step will include the establishment of an online portal where customers will be able to make direct orders and retrieve information concerning healthy lifestyle and healthy eating habits. The company’s menu will include a variety of food and food products for breakfast, lunch, and dinner. Among these foods, the company aims at serving its product consumers with cold salad-based meals and cold sandwich-based meals thought to provide balanced diet.
Prospects, Trends, and Opportunities Available for Expansion
Our survey of the market (Basel) indicates that the Internet-based fast food company will be able to achieve a 15 percent growth in monthly sales with the first year of establishment. An approximated sale of 20 percent of company’s volume is a realistic figure considering the fact that most companies sell as low as 1,000 meals per day. A survey of the Swiss visitors indicated that 40 percent of this population value healthy fast food products and will be willing to by foods, such as salad while 60 percent preferred buying sandwiches. On the contrary, 55 percent of visitors stated that they would be willing to buy basic food products while 45 percent mentioned king-sized food products.
The general belief among the company founders is that there are wider opportunities available for the internet-based fast food company. Therefore, the performance of the company will be linked to the following factors:
- Ability to promote the consumption of healthy foods and help consumers to maintain social values of youthful appearances;
- Ability to promote the understanding of healthy feeding to eliminate health complications associated with food and food substances;
- Healthy, tasty, and relatively cheap foods;
- Modern packaging techniques;
- Existence of clear markets opportunity and
- A highly innovative business model.
These are some of the prospects, trends, and opportunities available for the company to expand its operations and gain competitive advantage over other existing companies.
Marketing and Market Entry Strategy
The company market, entry style will be based on the notion that the products and services provided address the needs of consumers across different markets. With the vision of becoming a leader in Basel market, the company aims at providing its customers with fast prepared, high quality, and healthy foods. The food offered by the company will help consumers maintain good health and welfare without negative effects on the valuable leisure time. Otherwise, the marketing strategy will correspond to the porters 7P’s for product, price, place, promotion, people, process, and physical evidence.
Products and Services
The founders of the company plan to produce and sell cold salad-based meals and cold sandwich-based meals that are known to be highly nutritious. Through the web portal, the company will be in a position to promote its health foods and tips on healthy lifestyle. The company will also stabilize its performance by producing new salads and sandwiches as well as selling to the population drinks produced from fresh fruits and vegetables. The packaging style used by the company will also allow the consumers to carry the foods more easily and conveniently.
Cold salad-based meals will be produced from fruits, vegetables, and whole wheat breads. The company will produce two types of salads based on the sizes: the basic size salad and the king size salad. Even though the ingredients that will be used for the two salads will remain the same, the king size salad will be bigger than the basic size salad by 50 percent. Similarly, the price difference between the two types of salads will be $1.5, excluding the VAT. Each packaging style will be associated with the product and a card with the details of the ingredients included in the packages. Apart from the ingredients, the cards will be of educational value to consumers because it will highlight the importance of the food ingredients for the body. At the start, the company will produce and sell eight different types of salads; six vegetable and two fruit salads. The eight types of salads will include asparagus and goat cheese, mixed gourmet, Buckwheat porridge with tuna, cauliflower on Chinese cabbage, and nest of eggs on corn, mixed salad with asparagus, Bedouin, and pineapple salads.
On the other hand, the cold sandwich-based meals will be produced mainly from vegetable products, meat, and seafood ingredients. Like the salads, the company will also produce and sell two types of sandwiches including the basic size sandwich and the king size sandwich. The ingredients that will be used for the two sandwiches will remain the same, but the king size sandwich will be bigger that the basic size sandwich by 50 percent. The price difference between the two sandwiches will be $2.80, excluding the VAT. The packaging style will allow for easy identification of the food components and a card with the details of ingredient included in the packages.
Apart from the classification based on the size, the sandwiches the company will produce can also be classified based on the ingredients to be used. On this basis of classification, the company will produce three major groups of sandwiches including meat sandwiches, seafood sandwiches, and mixed sandwiches. The company will take a final step to expand its products based on the response and feedback from the market.
Prices
The company management has set prices for products and services that are comparable to the cost of production and delivery. The company, therefore, will operate at the competitive prices in the Basel market, but not at prices lower than the average premium cost. The company management also maintains that the products and services to be offered, based on the prices, will be alternatives to the company’s competitive advantage. This is because the food products will be of higher quality with positive health impacts on consumers. The company will ensure that the sales are of higher volume by providing additional marketing services and bonuses to customers seeking for online advice and good recipes. Through these strategies, the company management is optimistic of achieving higher added value than some of the competing firms. The table below shows competitive price of each of the company’s products, which entirely depends on the type and size of the food product.
| Product | Price in Dollars, excluding VAT |
| Basic salads | 5.00 |
| King salads | 6.50 |
| Basic sandwich | 3.00 |
| King sandwich | 4.800 |
Location/Place
The company will be located in Basel (Switzerland) and will sell most of its products and services on the Swiss market. The company primarily targets customers who have not time or ability to prepare healthy balanced food and food products. Within the Swiss market, the company will vest most of its efforts to introducing customers to the different fast food products and educating customers about the balanced nutrition. Other than targeting the specific individuals, the company also targets companies that are motivated to provide employees with appropriate meals for long-term performances. The company also targets companies and specific individuals offering various kinds of products with organic certification. Even though the company will have its physical location at Basel, the most important media of advertisement and selling will be both internet and sales agents. As a start, the company will serve markets in Basel, but later will expand to sell in the entire Switzerland market.
Promotion
Essentially, the company will promote and sale of its products through sales representatives and directly through emails. Similarly, the company works on the strategy of allowing customers to place orders and buy the products online. The company also considers promoting its products and services through referrals from potential consumers. This means that the company will at all times strive to maintain the good quality of food product, operate within the average market price, and provide customers with after sale services.
People
The company’s performance will rely on the active roles of employees, managers, shareholders, and other groups of stakeholders. For efficient management, the company will ensure that the right people are employees to take part in product processing and final delivery to customers. The company management will also maintain a close communication with customers for possible assessment of the overall performance to improve in weak areas.
Process
The company’s operations will include food production and delivery through emails, portal, or sales agents. The use of emails, portal, and sales agents was considered appropriate for this company because the methods are cheap, secure, and efficient. The packaging and the final delivery of the food products will be done with the customers present. The food packaging will be done based on the preference of the customer to reduce the number of complaints the company may face after the delivery of the foods products.
Physical Evidence
All the manufacturing and other production activities will take place after licensing. The licensing process is necessary because it is a legal process that every company must go through and allows the right to operate and serve the target markets. In case the company will be delivering its products through the Internet, the delivery massages sent to clients will act as physical evidences showing that the transaction that was initiated has been completed. In case of offline sales, the company will use receipts as physical evidences for the transactions. This will allow the company to not only keep a good record of the transactions, but also keep track of regular customers.
SWOT Analysis
The table below represents that company’s analysis of internal and external environmental factors
| Internal Environmental Factors | |
| Strength | Weaknesses |
| High position in the Switzerland market High performance in Basel market Financial accountability Innovations like introduction of internet-based purchases | High performance costs for designing the portal, running emails, and making face-to-face deliveries Little exposure to other markets Increasing cost of labor |
| External Environmental Factors | |
| Opportunities | Threats |
| Good perception towards healthy lifestyle New regulations in the food industry High performance through promotion and advertisement | Increase in prices of raw materials Growing competition in the food industry Increasing number of companies in the industry |
With the intense business activities currently taking place in the food industry, the company expects to grow it revenues in the first three years of performance as indicated in the appendix. If, for instance, the company is able to grow sales from a minimum of 775.45 dollars per day in the first year to a minimum of 3,101.80 dollar per day in the third year, the total sales will grow from 279,163 dollar in the first year to 1116654 dollars in the third year of performance. This would mean that the company is able to achieve the 20 percent monthly revenue growth as projected by the owners. However, the negative net profits realized by the company in the first two years will be an indication that part of the revenue is used to meet the growing expenses and the company tries to make long-term performances stable. The owners expect that with the first two years of operation, the company shall have already established stable business activities characterized by higher sales and positive net profits.
Net cash flow is calculated as the difference between cast inflows and cash outflows and measures the company’s ability to finance the business activities. Apart from the owners’ capital, the company will use the sales revenues to finance most of its business activities. The company management within the first three years will use the entire amount obtained from sales as cash inflows. Cash outflow will include finances spent on operating expenses, and other elements like Tax and VAT. The expected cash balance after deducting all the operating expenses will be 677,899 dollars in the first year, 543,981 dollar in the second year, and 611,748 dollars in the third year. However, the company’s assets will be made up of cash balances contributed by owner while current liability will consist of accounts payable. These are some of the funds the company will be using to develop its systems including the portal, website and manufacturing activities.
Works cited
Bonfadelli, Heinz. “4.1 Online Communication: Putting the Knowledge Gap Theory into Perspective.” Communication Research and Media Science in Europe: Perspectives for Research and Academic Training in Europe’s Changing Media Reality (2003): 289.
Bonfadelli, Heinz. “The Internet and knowledge gaps a theoretical and empirical investigation.” European Journal of communication 17.1 (2002): 65-84.
Appendix
Projected Loss Account
Internet-Based Fast Food Company
| Year 1 | Year 2 | Year 3 | |
| Sales | $279,163 | $558,327 | $1,116,654 |
| Direct Cost of Sales | $61,957 | $123,914 | $247,827 |
| Other Costs of Sales | $0 | $0 | £0 |
| Total Cost of Sales | $61,957 | &123,914 | $247,827 |
| Gross Margin | $217,207 | $434,413 | $868,826 |
| Gross Margin % | 77.81% | 77.81% | 77.81% |
| Expenses | |||
| Payroll | $88,200 | $262,000 | $449,600 |
| Marketing/Promotion | $10,000 | $10,000 | $10,000 |
| Depreciation | $0 | $0 | $0 |
| Rent | $174,000 | $248,000 | $298,000 |
| Utilities | $2,550 | $5,000 | $8,000 |
| New location setup | $25,000 | $50,000 | $50,000 |
| Total Operating Expenses | $299,750 | $575,000 | $815,600 |
| Profit Before Interest and Taxes | ($82,543) | ($140,587) | $53,226 |
| EBITDA | ($82,543) | ($140,587) | $53,226 |
| Interest Expense | $0 | $0 | $0 |
| Taxes Incurred | $0 | $0 | $0 |
| Net Profit | ($82,543) | ($140,587) | $53,226 |
| Net Profit/Sales | -29.57% | -25.18% | 4.77% |
Projected Cash Flow
Internet-Based Fast Food Company
| Year 1 | Year 2 | Year 3 | |
| Cash Received | |||
| Cash from Operations | |||
| Cash Sales | $279,163 | $558,327 | $1,116,654 |
| Subtotal Cash from Operations | $279,163 | $558,327 | $1,116,654 |
| Additional Cash Received | |||
| Subtotal Cash Received | $279,163 | $558,327 | $1,116,654 |
| Expenditures | Year 1 | Year 2 | Year 3 |
| Expenditures from Operations | |||
| Cash Spending | $88,200 | $262,000 | $449,600 |
| Bill Payments | $244,265 | $430,245 | $599,286 |
| Subtotal Spent on Operations | $332,465 | $692,245 | $1,048,886 |
| Additional Cash Spent | |||
| Sales Tax, VAT, HST/GST Paid Out | $0 | $0 | $0 |
| Subtotal Cash Spent | $332,465 | $692,245 | $1,048,886 |
| Net Cash Flow | ($53,301) | ($133,918) | $67,767 |
| Cash Balance | $677,899 | $543,981 | $611,748 |
Projected Balance Sheet
Internet-Based Fast Food Company
| Year 1 | Year 2 | Year 3 | |
| Assets | |||
| Current Assets | |||
| Cash | $677,899 | $543,981 | $611,748 |
| Other Current Assets | $0 | $0 | $0 |
| Total Current Assets | $677,899 | $543,981 | $611,748 |
| Long-term Assets | |||
| Long-term Assets | $0 | $0 | $0 |
| Accumulated Depreciation | $0 | $0 | $0 |
| Total Long-term Assets | $0 | $0 | $0 |
| Total Assets | $677,899 | $543,981 | $611,748 |
| Liabilities and Capital | Year 1 | Year 2 | Year 3 |
| Current Liabilities | |||
| Accounts Payable | £29,242 | £35,911 | £50,452 |
| Current Borrowing | $0 | $0 | $0 |
| Other Current Liabilities | $0 | $0 | $0 |
| Subtotal Current Liabilities | $29,242 | $35,911 | $50,452 |
| Long-term Liabilities | $0 | $0 | $0 |
| Total Liabilities | $29,242 | $35,911 | $50,452 |
| Paid-in Capital | $800,000 | $800,000 | $800,000 |
| Retained Earnings | ($68,800) | ($151,343) | $£291,930) |
| Earnings | ($82,543) | ($140,587) | $53,226 |
| Total Capital | $648,657 | $508,070 | $561,296 |
| Total Liabilities and Capital | $677,899 | $543,981 | $611,748 |
| Net Worth | $648,657 | $508,070 | $561,296 |