24A – Venture Concept No. 1

My healthy food truck is an idea I have had for a few years now. I have gone back and forth between having a nut butter business, a healthy food truck business, or an energy ball business. In the end I decided that it would be best if I did all of these things, but used the healthy meal food truck for this entrepreneurship class currently. My ideas have changed over the course of the semester, but my opportunity, innovation, and venture concept for the healthy food truck remain the same.

As for opportunity goes, I have identified the opportunity as a lack in the health side of food truck businesses. The need goes out to any working human or any person that has a busy schedule and wants food fast and healthy. The nature of the need is current because society wants more and more healthy food because they are learning the importance of it. The environment is becoming more health conscious so creating this opportunity would blend in with society. I do not know much about the market outside of America, but I know many Americans are interested in eating healthy and the benefits it has on your body. Customers currently are satisfied with going to stores like “Whole Foods” to pick up lunch and they pay a lot of money for it. This opportunity would not start off large, but it could eventually be made into a restaurant or the food could be sold at other stores. This opportunity will be open for a while, but we will of course have to adjust to societies changing values.

The new service I am going to offer will be innovative because there is no such thing as a healthy food truck in many locations. My service could begin as a healthy food truck that sells bowls with a base, such as brown rice, quinoa, or noodles, with a veggie of your choice, and with a protein of your choice, such as steak, chicken, tofu, and others. My service could then venture off into making nut butters and selling them at the food truck stand. My nut butters could then be distributed into other stores. My bowl will sell for around $7.00 and my flavored nut butters would sell anywhere from $6.00-$10.00 depending on the kind. I would make the bowls at an estimated cost of $4.00 and I would make the nut butters at an estimated cost of $4.00. My service as a food truck stand would eventually multiply into other locations or simply sell the nut butter and get the nut butter into large stores.

In addition, my innovation would solve the opportunity I identified. As for the healthy food truck goes, people are hungry in their busy days and want quick meals. Also, people want to be healthy so they feel better about them selves and look better. Customers will spend money on this because they are too lazy to cook and they don’t mind spending money on something quick, healthy, and satisfying. A lot of people don’t even know how to cook yummy healthy food, so this food truck will solve a lot of people’s problems. The reason customers would switch to eating here rather than where they normally eat is because of how fast it will be. Getting them to switch will not be hard because I will market it and offer free meals for the first certain number of people. With my company being the word on the street, it is bound to get customers.

The competitors would be places like Vale, Grill Fresh, or Whole Foods because they all offer make your own healthy bowls and have a healthy modern atmosphere like my food truck will be. The competitor’s weaknesses are their locations and their speed and quality of food.  Since my business is on a low scale right now, there would be no packaging needed or much customer service or other ad-in prices. My costs would be paying the worker that serves the food and paying the distributer that we get the food from. Once figuring out those costs, I would focus on business location, which is a large role. The business location must be in a populated area, like downtown Tampa or many other downtown cities that are highly populated. I would have only a few employees at first to see how the business goes. If the business takes off than I would need at least 5 employees at the differing locations. Overall, the venture is an important aspect to my business that I will continue to expand on.

Lastly, my most important resource will be marketing because I know people will love it once they try it for the first time. In addition, next for the venture would be my nut butter which I have created at the moment. The nut butter would branch off of my food truck, but would eventually be sold at local markets and then sold at large companies like Publix. In 5 years, I see my self solely with my nut butter business and leaving behind my food truck. I see myself similar to the “Wild Friends” nut butter business because these girls are entrepreneurs like myself. I vision my nut butter having different flavors and being produced in a factory and then sold across America. Overall, I'm excited for the future and to start my own business and see where it will take me. I see myself starting a business with my sister in downtown Sarasota and downtown Tampa. I see us starting with my food truck, but ending up with perfected nut butter since we have been working on our nut butter for years. I cannot wait to see what the future brings us.