Lunch delivery business

[David1570]

Dear friends

I have been thinking of starting a lunch delivery business from my home with my wife. My target customers would be office and school workers. I will be making fresh food at home such as sandwich, pasta, salad, wrap, baguette and fruit salad etc., and deliver to business with my own car.

After spending a lot of time researching about this type of business, I have prepared a plan as outlined below.

Can someone advice me if I am heading in the right direction? Any advice and answer to my questions below would be extremely helpful.


Step1: Preparing A5 size leaflet with small introduction of my business plan followed by survey questions about a) type of food they normally eat at lunch b) where do they normally buy their lunch c) how do they feel if I delivered fresh food at their desk at an affordable price d) what is their weekly budget

Step2: I am going to print about 1000 leaflets and distribute them to office and local school. I will then collect these leaflets from the receptionist few days later. If I see there is enough demand for my service then I will start this business.

Step3: Contact local council’s environment officer to discuss my plan. I am thinking of utilizing my little patio in back garden to prepare food by installing temporary roof over it. I believe that I need separate fridge and washing facility and food hygiene certificate.

Step4: If council happy with my plan, then I am going to find a web designer to build a website. I don’t know how much that will cost? Can I

Step5: Register with food standard agency and follow their guidelines. Get necessary insurance to cover business such as product liability insurance. Set up private limited liability company few months later.


Questions:

1. Can I buy domain name from Go Daddy and mention on my survey question leaflet about future web address of my business?
   
   
   
2. Shall I mention on the leaflet that I am new on this business? I am wondering if customers will be interested as they are probably used to buying lunch from branded shop.
   
   
   
3. I want low start up business cost. Can I build my own website or do I need professionally looking website? If yes, how much does it cost to build website or apps?
   
   
   
   
4. I will be running this business with my wife because I don’t want to employ anyone until it grows. Can I set up website so that it only takes certain numbers of order?
   
   
   
5. Will council allow me to prepare food from patio at the back garden? I will install roof and washing facility there.
   
   
   
6. Where can I do sandwich making course?
   
   
   
7. How do I calculate nutrition information of ingredients? How do I get nutrition information and use by date sticker printed?
   
   
   
8. Where can I buy sandwich sealing machine? How much do they cost?
   
   

 

[dotcomdude]

You should bear in mind that there is very often a significant difference between what people say they will do, and what they actually do. In your case, this may mean either:

• People say they will buy your lunches, but don’t when they are actually available

• People say they won’t buy your lunches, but do when they are available

A more reliable test is to produce some lunches and see if they sell, or if this isn’t practical try one day or one week where they can actually order from your menu.

 

[Calvin Crane]

I think you need to do more research. Exactly how much time have you put in so far. The questions you are asking are a concern given that you say you have done your research. Food hygiene is your main forgive me ignorance. I need to be blunt because I would hate to see you loose your time and money. Don't bother with website costs or anything until you do a lot more research.

I would try and learn about business basics as that will probably show you where you might go wrong.

 

[antropy]

To answer a few:
1) Avoid GoDaddy as they are not very good. www.theukdomain.uk or www.pickaweb.co.uk are better. I wouldn't mention about a future web address as people want to see a website now, not in the future.
2) Mention you are a new business but you have experience in the sector (people don't like novices who are learning on the job).
3) Doing the website yourself will keep the cost down but it is worth bearing in mind that is will be a bog standard website.
4) Will you be taking orders over the website? This makes point 3 harder to keep costs down as it will be hard to implement this on a website if you don't know what you are doing.
5) Best to call the food standard agency first to ask- https://www.food.gov.uk/.
6) Google this as there should be a nearby college that runs food preparation courses.
7) Nutrition information is something you would have to research before and label printing should be done by an outsourced company (doing it yourself is never a good look).
8) Again best to google.

As highlighted above you need to undertake a lot more research before starting the business as there are a lot of questions that need answering that may mean it either goes ahead or doesn't.

Alex

 

[ethical PR]

Before you do any research with potential customers you need to research your competitors to see what they offer, where and at what price.

Then you have to talk to schools, offices and office blocks to see who might be prepared to consider you doing a round. A school is obviously not going to let you wonder around to staff rooms, and staff get free lunches there, so not sure why you have identified them as a customer.

Businesses and schools aren't likely to let you circulate a survey and have their reception as a pick up point for you.

Once you have done your market research to show what you can provide that is different/better, and identified businesses and schools that will consider your service, offer to do a free drop in lunch for staff to sample what you offer and give you feedback on what else they might like and how much they would pay. You can also ask what discounts and promotions might appeal.

You don't need a website at first, a FB group will be sufficient. I have worked in many offices and never seen a website or indeed any marketing from the people who do the sandwiches, they just bring up a large basket or tray and you take whatever is available.

The most they might do is get you to email or call in the day before if you want something made to order.

 

[Krprop]

Hi

Just remember that you will have left over food which you will have to throw away which costs money.

It’s very hard to determine at first how much food you should make, not enough and you’ll run out of stock, too much and you’ve got left over food.

There’s a guy locally that does this with a little van and a musical horn. He targets areas not close to shops, staff usually run out and buy their lunch. But I’m sure they would get bored of the same stuff so it would be good to have a few things you could alternate.

To start with maybe as a trial buy in pies and sandwiches from a supplier to see how it goes before investing in equipment etc

Good luck!

 

[DmitryAleksandrov]

Hi,

You should make more marketing research at the areas you want to work. As was said above that people will buy on place neither order lunch. They are at work, and thinking of work.
Otherwise it’s very good idea. If you will start, don’t forget to complement deliverings with flyers with menu and contacts, this is one of cheapest ways to advertise your services

 

[David1570]

Thank you to all these lovely people for providing me with extensive piece of information covering many different areas of lunch delivery business. I take on board all of your comments and suggestion and find this very useful.

Initially I wanted to start this business on a large scale with my wife and a friend but after careful consideration I have now decided to start this business on a very small scale with just my wife because I don’t think it will be possible for me to do it on large scale as I work full time on 24 hours rotational shifts and cost involved. My partner is housewife.

Please find below my new business plan and correct me if I am wrong anywhere because I am very new to this business. I understand your time is valuable but will appreciate your comments and suggestion as this will help me to follow correct step by step procedure.

Step 1. I will phone council environmental health office to inspect my kitchen. I looked at cost of hiring commercial kitchen in London and they are approximately £75 per day which I can’t afford.

Step 2. I am hoping that council will allow me to run business from home with some modification of kitchen.

Step 3. If I am successful in step 2 then I will print some leaflet with survey type question and take them to local office and school close to home, to ascertain what type of lunch food they normally buy, what time do they like their lunch delivered to their office and what is their weekly budget. I will also target office in areas where they don’t have shop close to their business.

Step 4. I will complete food hygiene course and also look for sandwich making course online.

Step 5. I will contact food standard agency and ask them about their guidance on allergy, labelling and packing information.

Step 6. I won’t build any website or take online order at this stage as I don’t have enough manpower and can’t employ staff until business grows. At this moment, I am only looking for small side income.

Step 7. Food delivery, packing, allergy, nutrition and calories information???

I have no idea about above. Can someone help me?

Will council allow me to deliver food with my car? I have Volkswagen polo 1.2 car

Step 8. If everything goes well then I will calculate cost of making sandwich and try to work out net profit margin.

Step 9. Big problem??? I can’t sell sandwich every week of the month because of my shift work. In a month I may be able to sell sandwich 3 weeks. I am still thinking what to tell my customer about one week that I can’t sell sandwich. I can’t leave my secured job to start full time sandwich delivery business until it replaces my full time salary and this will take time.

Step 9. If everything goes well then I will buy second hand fridge, sandwich sealing machine, sandwich packing box and get allergy, nutrition and calories information sticker printed.

Step 10. If I can make small margin of profit and there is a demand of service from survey questions then I will run a trial period for 1 to 2 weeks. During that time I will prepare different types of sandwich, salad and baguette and take them to my target customers and try to sell them at cost price. After trial period, I will some idea what sell well and if my target customers like my food.

Step 11. I am only looking for few hundred pound a month side income at this stage. If I think this is possible without too much difficult then I will continue with this business.


I would appreciate any idea, comments or suggestion you may have.

 

[Owesdr]

It seems to me that you would prefer to have only small side job. In case that you can work only three weeks per months and output limited amount of lunches, then it would be good to target only a small group of customers who would be interested in such service. Try to find them through your network

 

[Natasha LAIT]

1. Can I buy domain name from Go Daddy and mention on my survey question leaflet about future web address of my business?
   You could do this. I would suggest at least creating a social media page to showcase legitimacy in the mean time
   
   
2. Shall I mention on the leaflet that I am new on this business? I am wondering if customers will be interested as they are probably used to buying lunch from branded shop.
   If you intend to launch your business in a big way (Social media pictures of your menu) then sure... I suggest printing a small amount of these and refering to your social media pages
   
   
3. I want low start up business cost. Can I build my own website or do I need professionally looking website? If yes, how much does it cost to build website or apps? You can build your own website by learning HTML & CSS. Google web design courses for costs.

 

[MikeCC]

I think you could do some easier research. If you already have in mind the locations, scope them out at lunchtime and see what people do or whether there are food vans already delivering. If they are larger places you can probably find out if they have a canteen.

If it were my business I wouldn't be keen on my reception collecting for you. Better to do it online perhaps? The best you might get is someone being nice enough to pin a leaflet on a noticeboard to publicise it. You can do it without a website using Google or Survey Monkey.

If you want to find who the competition are, just go on a local Facebook group and ask who is the best lunch van in the area. But use a different account if you post a survey link online!