Assignment 24A – Venture Concept #1

Assignment 24A – Venture Concept #1

Opportunity:  I believe that there is an opportunity when it comes to the amount of food wasted in the United States. This opportunity is present in restaurants, hotels, and vacation destinations where houses are rented out for weeks at a time.

Innovation/Venture Concept: I am offering customers the opportunity to reduce the amount of food waste they produce. For restaurants, my service would allow their excess food to be used for good. The excess food made in the kitchen could be donated and food that is deemed unusable could also be donated. This service would allow this excess food that would be simply thrown away to be given to people that need the food that is to be thrown away. A volunteer or a staff that is trained in the kitchen could take the food that would be thrown away and take it to a central location to be given to others. To the restaurant or business, I would offer them the opportunity to give back to their community in a way that also helps reduce their waste. To those receiving the food, I would offer them the opportunity to receive a good meal without having to search in dumpsters that these same restaurants throw away their food. Instead, I would allow this food to go straight to those in need, instead of being dumped in the garbage after it is prepared.

Price Points: My customers would more likely "purchase" the service in person. My business would probably speak to the owners and see how much food they waste and the quality of the food that they throw away. I believe that the restaurants would not want to pay for a service like this because it is free to throw away food so paying for a service to not throw it away would be bad for making a profit. When it comes to restaurants and food waste, I don't think that it is something that first crosses their mind during a nights work so my service would need to be something that helps support the business and not affect it negatively. 

Distribution: Service would be distributed over a 10 mile square radius to from the main location where food is brought and then given to the hungry people in the local community

Customer Service: Customer service would work directly with restaurants and the local homeless shelters. 

Location: In the downtown Miami area. 

Packaging: none 

Employees: could be volunteers from the restaurant or people who work for Food Waste and You. 

Unfair Advantage: I think that my unfair advantage would be my connections with companies that would support my venture. Because my company would be a non-profit, support from established organizations would help me put my name out there and ensure that we get the funding we need. Additionally, I have connections and contacts to numerous restaurants in Miami and shelters that would allow me to connect with them and try to get them to have my service and supply food

What’s Next? I want to tackle something related to health care and biomedical applications. Once I gain more experience in the engineering field and have more knowledge, I wish to address an opportunity in this field. 

For Me: In five years, I hope that the venture has established itself at the minimum of 10 restaurants in the Miami downtown area and is looking to expand to other areas in Miami and get other restaurants to join.