New Business Idea!

[directuk]

Hello everyone. Currently working on a new business idea - details below.

I would be grateful if:
1. You can let me know if there are any flaws in the idea, and any general feedback?
2. If you could suggest any business names. The name needs to be “official” yet attractive for kids. When you read the idea you will learn more.

After playing with various business ideas over the past few months think we have finally come up with a ‘goodun’.

The concept is ready made pack lunches delivered direct to kids at school.
The pack lunches will be healthy, reasonable in value - £2 a head per day, and contain the recommended calories and nutrition (i.e. 2 of the 5 fruit and veg a day) etc. Exciting menus will allow parents to chose between pasta, sandwiches and wrap options, all including a fruit juice and fruit bar.

For parents it will be convenient, they can rely on us to deliver fresh, healthy food direct to their kids at school on a daily basis. Saves worrying about finding the time to make a pack lunch and also ensure that what they give their kids is healthy in the first place – we worry about that!
Why would you chose us over standard school hot dinner– because we can guarantee quality and nutrition, where they cannot as outlined in many documentaries – Jamie Oliver’s School Dinners.

We would make and deliver the food to order direct to the school on a daily basis and charge the parents accordingly.

Have had some tremendous feedback from kids, parents and schools so far, and are in the process of doing a trial run.

On a small-scale basis profits are small, but on say a nationwide basis, because of economies of scale, real profits can be obtained if this was successful, and the fact that we encourage healthy eating means we can hopefully make a difference to child obesity problems and hopefully shape a child’s healthy eating habits for life.

Thank you for reading, and any feedback would be much appreciated!
Ben

 

[wevet]

Check out the internet it already happens at my son's primary school they charge d£2 per day.

 

[directuk]

Check out the internet it already happens at my son's primary school they charge d£2 per day.

Hello, and thank you for your comment!

Can you remember the name of the company that serves your sons primary school?

Did a quick Google search and could not find anything similar,

Thank you and Regards
Ben

 

[heidi]

Sounds like a good idea to me.

 

[stevesolo]

I did a google on 'school meals' and came up with quite a few.

 

[FireFleur]

The idea is fairly sound, there will be demand, but there will be competition as well.

You are competing against their cafeterias anyhow, anything that makes the process simpler, varied, and cheaper will be the ground it is probably competed on, that's assuming you can always get the meals there.

And that is interesting what happens when you miss a meal, will little Timmy be able to get food elsewhere?

Will you pre-deliver the night before, or deliver at the school, former sounds better, but of course more expensive.

It is interesting, but I suspect the two pounds is a little low.

 

[stevesolo]

What if you supply the cafeteria so it becomes an outsourcing operation? You'd have to look carefully at your margins.

 

[wevet]

There is one large contractor that deliver to schools in West Sussex but I canot think of the name. Phone a school like St Andrews in Nuthurst tomorrow

 

[FAB Enterprises]

Ben,

It's a great idea but I'd be a bit a worried about the strength of your USP. Many schools are already implementing healthy meal options and those suppliers can also provide pack lunches.

Maybe if you added a little gift in each lunch box like a pencil, pencil sharpener, an eraser, protractor, bouncy ball, mini book etc something educational for example and/or get the kids to select/make some of the menu's (healthy options only of course), then it could give you a slight edge.

Good Luck.

 

[Mark Nagurski]

I like the idea, so a few thoughts:

1. Someone mentioned the idea of supplying the cafeterias - worth looking at to get scale faster
2. Will each meal be 'custom' for each child? If not, and I'm sure you've considered it, you'll need veggie, diabetic, lactose-free etc... options
3. Different options for different ages?
4. I agree £2 sounds low
5. See if there are ways to work in sponsorship to help offset costs
6. As a potential add-on - check out what these guys have done with healthy meal options for families

If you get it off the ground, let me know and I'll feature it on our business ideas site (link below)

Best of luck

 

[directuk]

Thank you for all of your positive responses.

You have definitely given me food for thought ;-)

Firefleur - Regarding missing a meal, this is a valid point - maybe a process where you deliver a few extra lunches for backup could be put into practice. The intention was to deliver on the day before lunchtime.

Stevesolo - an interesting concept that we will look into! Thank you.

Fab - we would try and include an incentive for the kids, e.g. football collection cards or something like this. We would also plan to offer an online "chose your lunches" service where parents and kids could chose exactly what they wanted! At the end of the day the kids should be allowed to chose what they want!

Mark - thanks for your points,
1. Defintely something to look into - will get doing some research on this!
2. It would be nice to offer a wide range of different products and let the child / parent chose the semi custom meal to meet their tastes, where of course we would integrate all of the various different requirements that kids have (e.g. veggie etc)
3. We would generally aim at the primary school market for starters. but no reason why we could not eventually do secondary schools etc! Maybe offer different ranges for ages or just offer a wide enough menu to allow to cater for all ages!
4. The reason for £2 is to stay at a same price as our main competition - the hot school meal supplied by the school - do you think parents would pay much more than this? I think so, but it possibly reduces demand slightly.
5. Various schemes sponsorship that we are looking into, but obviously cannot be sure we will get this! Definitely something to consider!
6. Add on would be something to consider, and would be taken more seriously once we built the brand I think!

Regards
Ben

 

[KidsBeeHappy]

You need to incorporate the kiddy factor; unpredictability!!

Children will change their mind three times in the dinner queue, this doesn't fit well with Mum choosing the menu several days in advance. Even if mum chooses a good healthy meal, which you provide perfectly, they're not going to keep paying if the kiddy wants something else.

 

[mr kipper]

I think the points have been made already but here is some other thoughts which might help with the brain storming!!

- our kids school meals are £1.90 a day for hot meal and pudding
- schools are focused on healthy eating and quality is being pushed throughout UK (healthy schools initiative)
- I think parents will either do school supplied meals or will do their own sandwiches where they have control
- there are massive companies (Sodexo??) who supply catering to schools at a very low cost (£1.70??) that you would be competing with if you tried to take over the catering side of things.
- If you sell into the school and they have their own catering, you will be competing with them and taking any profit they can make to reinvest into schools catering facilities

 

[Jeff FV]

One of the keys to your success will be getting the schools on board - crack this and you'll tap into the market, alienate the school and you've had it! (In adddition to running 'dots and spots' I'm also work in education!)

So how do you get the school on board? They will ask what's in it for them? Will you be offering them a percentage of your takings? - Will you expect the school to distribute the meals? Will the meals be stored on site or will the pupils come off campus to buy from you? If so, why wouldn't the pupils just go down to the local chip shop/sandwich shop etc.? What about rubbish/waste?

Its a good idea and I wish you luck. For it to work, the price has to be right, the quality good and simple for the school to operate and administrate.

 

[Officebird]

My little one started school in Sep and had packe lunches for the first term. It was a pain doing them but at least I knew what she was getting. The school she is in have a fantastic menu and I must admit I was glad when she decided she'd like to try school dinners.

One thing to consider is that the Government found that a lot of packed lunches weren't very healthy and then not all parents were feeding their children healthy meals at home after school either. This ws recognised as a factor in the whole rise in childhood obesity factor. As a result the government, through the schools, are now pushing for more children to eat school meals so that the children are getting at least one healthy meal a day. (the woman on Jamie Olivers programme that gave her child a kebab for dinner everynight springs to mind!) I think (but am not 100% sure) that schools are rewarded if they get a high percentage of children on school dinners.

With this in mind how many kids now have packed lunch? My childs class has 30 pupils, 3 had packed lunch and now 2 as she has dinners. I believe (only a 5 years word to go by though) that in all 3 reception classes there were only 6 people who had packed lunch, that's out of 90!

Would I buy from such a service? probably not to be honest as one thing about making the lunches yourself is the control you have and the ability to reach your child inthe middle of the school day and make them feel special. I would cut her sandwiches out with Winnie the Pooh cutters so they looked special and used barbie stickers to keep the bag together. I also used watermelon as a bit of a bribe at home:redface: "If you aren't good there won't be any watermellon in your lunch tomorrow!" Sad but true.

The kiddie factor is massive as well. Do you know why my little girl wanted packed lunch? Because she wanted to take her Disney Princess bag to school. Do you know why she changed to school dinners? Because her best friend hhad them and her mum wouldn't let her change. Packed lunch children sit seperately.

I do think it's a good idea but you will need to do a lot of research.

Good Luck

 

[AOB]

Where are you based, Ben? I know of a potentially complementary idea if you are south of London. PM me if you prefer.

The idea appears sound if the schools were to support it and the finances make sense from your side. In practice, I suggest that success will depend more on how well you deliver the promise and on perceptions around reliability, food safety and value for money. There is still a tendency for people to think that making a packed lunch at home is free.... well don't we all!

 

[TraceyAnn]

I think you have thought of a good idea, however our school meals are £1.70 per day and this has only just gone up to this price so £2 would appear to be a bit pricey. My youngest son has had sandwiches whilst his older broher was at the same school, but has now gone onto dinners which he enjoys, and they are definately healthier than when his brother had dinners when he started school.

 

[adam]

Kipper has summed it up well. I have stayed away from school catering in the past. Budgets are tight and Local Education Authorities are more likely to go with the big companies.

£2 is low to cover your costs including travel. What if at one school you only get 40 meals ordered? Very costly to deliver. And if it is just 1, do you not go?

No way will the company running the catering order in at that level when they can make it for £1 which again is why we say £2 is low.

There is likely to be VAT to account for as this is a service, not simply a delivery of food but do check.

 

[jniven]

I can't see how this would be sustainable financially.

As Sara mentioned, only a small percentage of pupils actually have packed lunches, and now hot school meals are much healthier than they used to be which devalues one of your main selling points.

Have you worked out any figures yet?

Overheads like thermologistics - 1, 2, 3 vans per town? Cost of vans - purchase or lease, insurance, tax, petrol, drivers, maintanance.

Cost of food preperation - ingredients, packaging, staff, premises, insurance...

It's also worth bearing in mind that you'll lose around 4 months of annual revenue when you add up Christmas, Easter, summer, and half-term holidays.

Just to break even - that's a lot of pack lunches in a very short period of time!

I truly hope that you prove me wrong. Best of luck! J

 

[cricket]

I would aim at a much bigger market. Slimmers meals delivered to the door. I design a clothing label for larger ladies. They currently form 65% of the market place for me anyway.

People are absolutely lazy when it comes to cooking so you could expand into healthy meals, meals for one, meals for two, meals for a week. the ideas are endless.

I cook BTW.

 

[adam]

No slimmers meals, that will kill your clothing business!

 

[cricket]

Small ladies want to stay small.