Starting a box lunch delivery service (not sandwiches...), need advice on logistics

[petithamu1980]

Hi all,

I am starting a small box lunch delivery service from home, this is something I've been thinking about for a really long time and I've decided to take the plunge and do it. I am still working 4 days a week so will only be able to deliver on Fridays.

I will be preparing Taiwanese 'bento' style lunch boxes and deliver them to offices. These are very traditional in my culture (in case you missed it, I'm Taiwanese...), it's a beautiful presented lunch box with rice, vegetables and a main 'attraction' like braised pork or fried chicken cutlet, etc. All wrapped up and ready to be eaten. I will be prepping/cooking/packaging/delivering all by myself as I don't currently have a partner. This is what I already have:

- Food hygiene certificate
- Registered with the local council.
- Been inspected by Environment Health and have passed with flying color.
- Worked on logo/branding and in the process of creating a flyer/website
- Received packaging for the food

I know I still need to get liability insurance, registered with Companies House and get a good book keeping software so I can do it myself. The next part is the part I don't know how to start...

I'm going to start with my husband's office park which has about 40 offices. I didn't want to start at my husband's company because I feel like the guys would feel obligated to buy from me so then I won't get genuine feedback. I am confident to walk in to offices and introduce my service but...

Problem 1: I can only at best make 20 - 30 boxes each Friday.
Problem 2: How should I market myself? To one specific office and add more later on once I'm better at it or flyer to EVERY office in the office park and hope someone will buy?

The issue with #2 is if one office order one box, I would waste a lot of time running around the office park delivering one box or maybe two boxes per company. I can't figure out if I should:

A. Just show up with 20 boxes and go visit offices and ask to spend 15 min in each and see who buys or
B. Pre-order. Send out an email mid week and take orders and deliver to those companies only.

I've been wrecking my brain on how this would work and I can't come up with a good solution...

Also I will be changing the menu weekly (since only delivering on Fridays for now), how can I communicate that with my customers?

Sorry it's so long to read...I hope you guys can help me. Thank you.

Tiffany

 

[Simply Business]

Hi @petithamu1980,

Congrats on taking the plunge firstly! And secondly, they sound delicious, what area will you be doing these in?

Correct about liability insurance - you'll likely want public liability to cover if you damage anything when delivering to offices, and product liability to cover if your food (I'm sure it wont, but just in case) makes anybody ill.

Flyering could work, have you also thought about getting in touch with them directly via a phone call and perhaps offer discounts for bulk orders?

 

[fisicx]

Tiffany,

You may well find the offices already have food suppliers so your main problem will be getting people to change theuir eating habits. And then there is the Fridays only thing. Office staff will want a daily service. And a lot of offices finish early on a Friday so they might not even need food. And not everyone likes Thai food.

Why not talk to the people who already do food deliveries to these offices and see if you can do some sort of a deal? All you then have to do is deliver a bunch of boxes and they do all the rest. You profits will be a little lower but you no longer have all the marketing and logistics issues.

 

[petithamu1980]

Hi!

I'm going to start with Kentish Town. My husband works in Highgate Studio which has loads of offices there. Currently there is a canteen that never has any food and a sandwich guy and a salad guy that show up everyday. I pack lunches for him daily and his colleagues are starting to ask what he's eating and such so I thought I can provide something else other than sandwiches!

Yes, I will be getting in touch with them directly. I can get the detail of the site manager and I am also happy to go into offices and introduce myself. But since I can only do such small orders in the beginning, I just don't know if I should approach all offices or just a few?

 

[petithamu1980]

Hi fisicx,

I sent the above message before reading your reply. I had thought about the Friday thing because I think people might go out to lunch on Fridays instead but circumstances only allow me to do it on Friday...unless I can change my current work schedule and also my daughter's nursery schedule. Because my food is so different from the sandwich/salad guys, I don't think they would want to help me...plus I like going out and meeting the people that are eating my food, get direct feedback that way.

I know that it's a long shot with Taiwanese food but with all the recent trends on Taiwanese cuisine, I thought I have something really solid to offer...

 

[WHARTY]

You seem nice and I my only advice would be to get out there and give it a go! It's not going to cost you a fortune and at least by giving it a go you will gets lots of feedback which will help you make the decision as to weather it's worth giving it a little bit more money and time.

I hope you do well.

 

[james_firmsites]

I would suggest you offer some kind of promotion (like a discount on future boxes) if people give you their email. Using most decent website email systems you can build a separate list for each office. Then when you know your going to visit it that day you can email just those people, perhaps with a picture to entice them, and keep building your lists up. This also solves the issue of communicating your changing menu and if you decide to switch from just turning up (which is probably best at first) to pre-order via email/website.

Social media is great too but harder to target a specific subset of people, so really try to work email into your marketing as short term it will be much more effective. If you decide to go to a wider area of offer web ordering then obviously the wider reach of sites like facebook would be preferable. Perhaps you could offer a discount for anyone that posts a photo of themselves eating one of your lunch boxes, which people may not do for a normal sandwich but something a bit quirky like bento might inspire them. Make sure to take lots of photos and work the intergram/pintrest networks.

 

[petithamu1980]

Thanks James. Do you mean like a Gmail set up will work? I was thinking about the opening promotions like second box is 50% so two people can use the discount together and that way I get two clients. I am big on using Facebook and have my own personal food-logging FB page already so I'm bit on the food porn. I really like the idea of someone posting a photo of them eating a box and hashtag the brand name...these are great ideas!

Still my very first delivery, do you think I should just turn up? I was thinking a week before I will go visit the offices and give flyers but I still don't know if I should target one or two offices or give out flyers to all the offices? Keep in mind, I can only at best make 20 on my own right now...

 

[SWGlobal]

Hi, Sounds a great meal option. My suggestion would be to speak to the biggest company and ask out of courtesy if they would object to you turning up one Friday lunch time with samples and maybe 20 boxes complete.

Let people try the food and hopefully enough will love it to purchase a box and maybe even place a regular order.

You've just got to get your offer out there. You could flyer etc. but nothing beats the real thing. You can talk about the fresh ingredients and healthy meal and give them an alternative to sandwiches or salads. Word will soon spread and you will have to decide t make and sell more
somehow.

Good luck

 

[branney]

Sounds like a good idea. I would target 2 offices initially. Try to get a feel for initial orders by emailing an offer in advance, as said above. Have a 3rd office who you have introduced yourself to, and advise you will be starting in the next few weeks. If the first 2 don't sell you out, you can go into the 3rd the same day with what is left.

Since you already have Fridays free, I wouldn't worry about it not being a sell-out on Day 1. Just get in there and start. Here is a pessimistic forecast example:-

Say you get 10 people expressing interest in ordering from the canvassing of the first 2 offices. You optimistically turn up with 14 boxes on the day. Maybe you sell 7 in the 2 offices who you targeted, and another 2 in the 3rd office who didn't know you would start so soon. That leaves you with 5 boxes, of which you and your husband can no doubt eat one each that evening. So all you have to lose is the cost of ingredients for 3 boxes, and your travel expenses!

The following week, most of the 9 will order again. Let's say 3 of them are out of office or have other plans. But 2 who wanted to order last week (and couldn't) go ahead and buy this time. Also, of the original 9, 4 ate their food at their desk, and between them the smell of the food brings an extra 10 people for the 2nd week. That's you at 18 orders for your 2nd week, and that is being pessimistic.

I think doing Fridays only is a good thing, as people won't get bored and will look forward to it. If first 2 offices almost sell you out, an option is not to bother selling last 2 boxes to the 3rd office, if you don't want to disappoint some people when you reach your 20 production threshold. On the other hand, from week 3 you could easily be on pre-orders only. That allows you to vary a couple of boxes for dietary requirements, which you may find are loyal customers for the very same reason.

 

[Newchodge]

You mention registering as a limited company at Companies House. This is not necessary and is probably the wrong thing to do with a micro business like yours.

You can set up as a sole trader, just tell HMRC that you are starting to be self employed. If the business takes off and you generate a big enough profit, look at going ltd at that stage, but to start, just stay self employed.

 

[james_firmsites]

In theory you could do it via Gmail but I more meant with some proper email software. Most systems, including ours, refer to them as lists. So each business could have a separate list. Although if you end up with mailchimp I think they call them groups now (since their model does not allow for multiple list sending, which is annoying if you are visiting say 3 different places in one day so want to send the same email to 3 distinct lists)

 

[ThePublisher]

I can't help thinking that if you're doing this in limited numbers, and people in your husband's office are already eyeing up his lunch, why not start where there are people already open to the idea of buying from you? Or at least use his office as the one you go to with leftovers.

 

[branney]

+1 to ThePublisher's comments. If you are worried the feedback would be lacking in negative comments, phrase the comments card like "what is the one thing we could improve about the meals?" and perhaps give a discount off the next meal box to people who fill them in.

 

[Chris Ashdown]

I see a problem in that most people soon get tired of eating the same thing be it once a week or day, and most therefore just grab a sandwich and bear with it, i imagine your customers may only buy say once a month as something special, so making orders would be very hit and miss

As someone else said split the profit and just make for someone who has a big round at lunchtime, Around here one firm has about 4 small vans with hot and cold products in the back and go around all the factories and industrial estates in the town. This would get your products known and you just deliver say 20 lunches to them at the start and hope they sell enough to increase later

Nobody really wants to talk to a sandwich type person they just want to get their lunch and get back to their desk of sunny position and eat

50% of the profit is ok and many sandwich people are not making them they just buy from a third party who make much larger quantities

 

[petithamu1980]

Wow, I didn't realize people actually responded as I've stopped receiving email notifications! Thank you all for such great answers! And in response to you:

- I still would love to try it with my husband's office first and he is happy for me to do so but I thought initially if I can get people who's never had my food to love it then I know I have a winning product(s). I think I would have my husband's office as a back up as they already know me and quite a few of them have had my lunch boxes during my taste trials.

- I'm worried about setting up as a sole trader in case anything goes wrong. I keep hearing all these stories that I could lose my house/car?! Also I thought perhaps it is better to separate personal account/business account. I have been reading about all the accountancy procedure I need to do or at least hire someone else to do it if I am set up as a limited company. This bit is undecided...

- My husband's office complex has 57 companies and I've decided to split them into two categories: Large and small. I really like branny's forecast examples because that actually gave me a really good idea on what potentially could happen. That is wonderful, thank you.

- Chris, that is definitely something I'm worried about as well as I would like to eventually quit my job and do this full time. I, too, would not want to eat the same thing everyday so every week there will be a rotating menu. I am also thinking of working with the canteen in my husband's complex and see if they are happy to sell hot food on my behalf and I split the profit. That is definitely something in the books.

Thank you all so much. This was so helpful! I really had thought that no one responded which is why I am delayed in my gratitude!

Thanks again. Tiffany
P.S. Is there a place on this forum I can share my menu and get feedback?

 

[Scalloway]

Losing you house or car as a sole trader would only happen if you ran up massive debts you couldn't pay. Taking out insurance would be a good idea in case you were sued, for example if you gave people food poisoning.

It is better to have a separate business bank account. Banks very often don't like people using free personal accounts for business purposes.

 

[petithamu1980]

Thanks Scalloway. Is it a lot simpler, in the accounting world, to trade as a sole trader since I am still so small? I'm also debating whether or not to pay myself a measly salary...or do I take the profit as a salary? It's all very confusing to me...

I will definitely get a business bank account then, I was quite indecisive but after reading a lot of posts and quite a few pros for it, I will do so.

 

[Scalloway]

The accounting requirements for producing limited company accounts are a lot more complex so you really have to get an accountant to do, and the fee will be a lot bigger than one for a similar sized sole trader.

If you are a sole trader you and the business are the same. Your profit is your taxable income but you can take as much or as little from the business as you want.

 

[petithamu1980]

But if you're a limited company your profit and income are taxed separately?

 

[Scalloway]

Company profits are taxed at 20%. If you have no other income you can take a salary of £10,000 and not pay tax on it. This salary is deducted from the company's taxable income. If you have sufficient profit you can save on national insurance contributions by taking dividends.

If you are a sole trader you can have profits of up to £10,000 and pay no tax if you have no other income.

 

[petithamu1980]

Okay, I currently do have another job where I work 4 days a week, I haven't even looked into the tax implication of the two jobs...

what do I have to do? Who should I be contacting? I don't even know what questions to ask...can you help?

My current annual salary is £30k...

 

[Scalloway]

If you are earning that kind of salary you really should see an accountant. If your venture is successful you could end up in the 40% tax bracket. An accountant will be able to help you structure your business an a tax efficient manner.

 

[petithamu1980]

Ah I see. In that case, should I just then registered as a limited company since it looks like I'd have to hire an accountant anyway...

 

[iwannabe]

For new customers, perhaps you could speak to HR and ask if someone could send out a special offer e-mail to all employees in the company. We used to get one at my old job from a hairdresser.