Question

feasibility analysis on the following business, using primary or secondary research to support your decisions, and include information about the research in your appendix section.

Meal Planning Company

You are preparing to open a new small business: a meal planning and delivery company - but with a twist. YOU need to research meal prep companies and come up with the twist: that is, a competitive advantage over the companies in the marketplace today.

Description and details of the business: As a meal planner, you would:

• Interview your customers as to their likes/dislikes/allergies
• Create a list of ingredients
• Create step-by-step recipes for your customers to follow
• Explain the nutritional value of the meals to educate your customers
• Explain to them how they are saving money by sticking to your meal plans
• Purchase the necessary ingredients
• Prepare and package all the necessary ingredients for each meal
• Deliver the uncooked, prepared ingredients to your customers

• Market research and demographic research
• Ideas / pricing / etc
• Consider that it could be to a particular audience; a particular type of meal; add-ons; pricing differentiation - and more.

Remember the proposed business so you have the liberty of making decisions / assumptions (that you explain) and you may make decisions about the company (such as the type of food, etc) and so on. Plan that the business will start up in MI (research hint!)

Answer 1

MEAL PLANNING COMPANY

I along with my partners am planning to start a meal planning company with two of my partner’s one of who is a nutritionist and a dietician.

We interviewed many customers, mainly the prospective ones and came to understand their likes/dislikes and allergies. And we also found that many of them are looking for such meal planning company which are doing it on a monthly basis but excluding the holidays as they might prefer eating from out and also certain customers wanted their own menu to be designed and delivered. But they were ready to afford the same at the price that we quote and make payment on a monthly basis as instalments. So we decided to open a video consultation by booking a date of their preference, listening to them and designing the menu for them. For this we decided to hire more dieticians and nutritionists. Here in the video consultation we also took note of their allergies and the like. And we also uploaded some readymade meal plans for different body types, weight loss, normal diet, weight gain etc. which the customers can choose on their own. They can also choose the day before for the next day menu mixing and then paying on the same day for fixing the delivery.

The list of ingredients that we are mainly using are the chicken, fish, pork and other meats which are obtained from the organic farms in the country side. The vegetables and fruits are also procured fresh in the same manner. The inventory would be stored only for a maximum of 3 days and a fresh delivery would be received on the fourth day. Spices are also grounded from small enterprises run by the women entrepreneurs in the country side in order to make sure that they are chemical and preservatives free.

In the readymade meal plans, we have mentioned the nutritional value of the recipes and also the calories count of each item included in the meal with their weight in grams. They can also mix and match the meals by counting their calories requirement and veg/non-veg preference. In the customized meal plan we would be sending all this in their personal meal plans send via mail.

And in the website we have explained the nutritional benefits of each of the meals in a totality and in what manner each one would be helping them. For example, for a customer with a heart disease, he or she should be careful about the oil intake and the red meat intake. So here the content of oil and the amount of red meat that they should consume during a month are also explained so as to lead them make a decision in this manner.

The pricing is such that there is only an ample amount of profit taken by the company for meeting the fulfilment of requirements like hiring of quality nutritionists; delivering professionals and procuring the best ingredients which would help the customers stay healthy depending on them. We have kitchens in every corner whereby the customers can also visit in order to eat them from their lively cooked or come and pick their meal for the time all of which they can prefer and select from the website while making an order.

Here the major audience that we are planning to address and woo or win is the working class, who prefers to stay healthy and fit but at the same time do not have enough time to cook/prepare food as required. And those customers who belong to the senior citizen category and are staying alone. These people would not be able to cook on their won. And would depend on us as they can get healthy meals which would be prepared in accordance with the medical history and status of the customer.

So this is the overall system and plan for how we will be working and plan to set the business. We hope to create a whole difference among the customers so as to enable them live a healthy and happy life with good and the best food.