Proposed business: F&C - Salad Packaging
Salad Ready is a pre-packaged, ready-to-eat salad created by a company seeking to fill the market desire for foods that are both convenient and healthy. This plan is to make an innovative food product available to student market.
It is a new venture, F&C (Fresh and Convenient) is the name of the product, and it is mainly to sell special salad to customers. In the following parts, the Business Idea, Industry Related Issues, Target Market & Customer-Related Issues, Founder (s)-Related Issues, Financial Issues and Overall Business Potential will be introduced respectively.

Business Aims:
The object of F&C is to manufacture and market an innovative food product: a fresh and ready-to-eat leaf lettuce salad package.
The product Salad Ready will have a large variety of market segments among students, from schools to the hotel and restaurant. The strategy of F&C, however, is to build a student brand in successively larger segments of the market.

The Business Idea (Concept):
At university, many students do not eat breakfast, not even have time to eat lunch, therefore, selling some healthy, nutritious and convenient food to students is a good business opportunity. In addition, it is better than those who selling fast food, such as Fried foods.
Salad Ready is a consumer food product – fresh, washed, bite-sized leaves of leaf lettuce, contained in a sealed, transparent, fancy packaging.
The product concept flows from the British culinary tradition of salad--a tasteful selection of appetizing and eye-appealing green leafy lettuces. These lettuces contain a variety of vegetables, tomatoes, beans, corn and different kinds of sauce.
The packaged version of this concept places it in the rapidly growing group of high-quality, low-priced, convenience-based products which fit with British family and lifestyle.
Industry Related Issues:
The most common nowadays are the ready to eat salad products which are intended for people who have no time to prepare their own salad. Salad Ready-type products have been successfully marketed for five years in Switzerland, and were introduced only a year ago in France, where they have already taken one-third of the linear shelf space in the chain stores and supermarkets. (David H Urmann, 2009)
The possible markets size for F&C - Salad Packaging should be small sized only sales near schools. Although there is no patent protection, the idea and technology is proprietary and unique. There is currently no similar product on the market in Bangor. Existing products that come closest to this product are quite different in content, containing compacted shredded vegetables or ice berg lettuce instead of loose- leaf vegetables. They also differ in appearance, sold in a cloudy package instead of transparent film. For instance, Morrisons sells salad to customers, however it is compacted shredded vegetables and customers need to help themselves. It is wasting time for students who need to go to school.
When it comes to the potential growth of markets and the industry trends, Salad Ready has a high capacity for adaptation to regional differences, different market segmentation needs, and food consumption trends, because it can easily accommodate variations around its basic two-fold concept of freshness and convenience. If the products accepted by more and more people in the school, then it could be introduced to many other industries, such as hotel, supermarket, restaurant and gymnasium. Sports fans are the specific target market areas which are important. People need to replenish their energy after exercise. Hence, selling the special salad to sports fans maybe is a good business.

Target Market & Customer-Related Issues:
Target Markets: Schools, Gymnasium, Supermarkets.
Target customers: Students, teachers, sports fans.
Pricing: 1. The price will be right in order to penetrate the market.
2. The price should always cover the cost of production.
3. The price should allow for profitability.
Example: 4 oz packet 3￡- 4￡
: 8 oz packet 6￡- 7￡
Promotion: Advertising, promotional posters will be provided to schools, dormitories, mailbox, and everyone will be emailed to know where you can buy the products. Carry out promotional activities, for instance, discount, and buy one get one free at the beginning in order to attract more customers.
Distribution: In the school, packaged salad will be provided to the coffee shop, and the ground floor shop in the main arts. In the dormitories, it will be provided in the club. Students live in the dormitory will go through there when they go to school. In terms of gymnasium, we can cooperate with the sport centre. If customers willing to pay additional two pounds to gymnasium, then he can have a very nutritious salad after exercise.

Customer:
The major consumer trends which play a key role in selection of food products are as follows:
More women working outside of the home.
Consumer concern about fitness and health.
Smaller households requiring packaging of smaller portions.
--Source: Food processing Magazine.
It is believed that these trends are favorable to the success of a high-quality, convenience-based and premium-priced product like Salad Ready.
My customers are located in my town (local). Their buying decisions are based primarily on the quality of the salad and they will buy the salad daily.
Special Customers – women. “Women represent four out of five daily salad consumers, and three out of four people who consume salad four to six times a week basis. Leaf lettuce purchasers are more upscale consumers than salad users as a whole.” --Source: “Facts in Food Consumption”

Founder (s)-Related Issues:
The unique about the product, Salad Ready is a consumer food product – fresh, washed, bite-sized leaves of leaf lettuce, contained in a sealed, transparent, fancy packaging. Others are compacted shredded vegetables without packaging. Our product fulfils our customers’ high-quality, low-priced, convenient and nutrient salad ready product. Our goal is to allow customers to create good living habits; attention to breakfast time and content. Consequently, our products may become a necessity in customers’ daily life. The competition is other snacks, such as chocolate, French fries, chicken roll, etc. Although they are delicious, they contain a lot of fat and lack of nutrition.

Financial Issues:
Our business making money by selling packaged salad through Retail Forms. The packaged salad will you sell directly to customers. The Balance sheet showed as follow:
Start up: License | 350￡ | Insurance | 450￡ | Training | 300￡ | PC | 600￡ | Rent | 350￡/Month | Advertising | 50￡ | Materials | 200￡ | Total | 2300￡ |
Expected Revenue at beginning: Amount | Income | 30 from student/day | 25 select 4 oz packet5 select 8 oz packet | 105￡ | 20 from gym/day | 15 select 4 oz packet5 select 8 oz packet | 75￡ | Total | 180￡ / day |
The Balance sheet of start-up and expected revenue showed as above, from these two charts, it can be indicated that this product can be profitable after two weeks.

Overall Business Potential:
All indications are that the UK market is poised for growth in the green, leafy lettuces category, and that salads are increasingly important as a component of everyday British diets.
Fresh fruits and vegetables are already the fastest growing category in UK supermarket. This fact is propelled by the strong consumer trend to eat more fresh produce.
Salad ready products are becoming more and more popular in people’s daily life; it may become a fashion, a new fast-food approach and a new business prospects.

Reference: 1. David H Urmann, Ready To Eat Salad Products, 2009, http://www.articlesnatch.com/Article/Ready-To-Eat-Salad-Products/560015 2. Kristin Kahrs, Business Plans Handbook, 1st Edition, 1995, Gale Research Inc. 3. http://openlibrary.org/books/OL2260972M/Facts_in_food_consumption. 4. http://www.foodprocessing.com/issues/current.html