Business Plan for the Mobile Application Food Hero Team SEA Skylar Gilfeather, Ella Williams, Annie Xu Dana Hall School
Table of Content 1. Executive Summary..2 2. Company Description.......3 3. Product and Service Description...4 4. Market and Competitor Analysis..6 5. Branding and Marketing.11 6. Financial Plan and Projections 12 7. Appendix.13 1
1. Executive Summary A. The Problem Food waste has long been a serious problem facing our local and the international community. Current estimates put global food loss and waste between one-third and a half of all food produced, about 1.3 billion tons of food. This is equal to about 1 trillion dollars. With just one forth of the wasted food we could feed 795 million people suffering from hunger. In the US alone 30 to 40 percent of the food produced is wasted, even when it is still safe to consume. Among them, according to the USDA Economic Research Service, consumer and foodservice food waste is the largest source of food loss in the marketing chain. Additionally, a lot of the food waste are caused by people s confusion over the idea of In fact, many of the expiration dates on foods are set far earlier than necessary, which causes consumers to throw out food, even when it s still edible. Food waste not only poses potential threat to our environment but also stands especially alarming considering the large rates of starvation and food insecurity present as well. Additionally, saving food usually lets people to consume a wider variety of foods which would promote their own health. Action is needed to raise awareness and reduce this significant waste of our resources. As high school students in a boarding school, we realize through our own life experiences, the severity of food waste in our community. We wish to educates people about the problem, and to provide a convenient method of saving food for people in daily lives. B. Business Overview Team Sea is a non-profit organization based in Boston, MA. Food Hero is a mobile app developed by Team SEA and it aims to reduce personal food waste and educates people about the importance of food waste. Through three functions: pantry, donate, and recipe, users are offered the opportunity to consume their food creatively. We also aim to build a community of users to encourage people further engage in the actions for reducing food waste. 2
2. Company Description Mission Team Sea is a non-profit organization made up of three young female entrepreneurs from Dana Hall School. It is established in the year of 2016 in Wellesley, MA. We endeavor to make technology based products to help preserve the environment spread awareness about the importance of sustainability. The Team Our Team consists of Skylar Gilfeather, Ella Williams, and Annie Xu, each focusing on a specific aspect of the business while working closely together to create Food Hero, the first of many of our products. Skylar Gilfeather is the primary application developer. She is the main coder of the application and also oversees the future development of the app. She also perfected the paper prototype and designed the logo for Food Hero. Ella Williams is the market researcher. She has collected background information and statistics necessary for us to understand the problem. She also compiled the results we got back from the survey we sent out to the whole Dana Hall School. Annie Xu focuses on the business and financial aspect of Food Hero. She drafted the business plan and the paper prototype for the app. She also helped create the pitch presentation. In addition to the members described above, our team is also supported by our mentor, Neeraj Wadhera who is a senior technology executive with over 30 years of experience in the financial services sector. She has helped us form the idea and given valuable advice in generating a mission statement and a business plan. Ms. Lavakumar, who is a math, engineering and computer science teacher at Dana Hall School introduced our team to the technovation challenge. She organized regular club meetings at our school and has provided great help on coding the app and improving our pitch. 3
3. Product and Service Description Current Product Food Hero is a mobile phone app developed on the MIT App Inventor by Skylar Gilfeather, Ella Williams and Annie Xu. The application focuses on providing help and advice for people to reduce food waste primarily in three ways: keeping track of the users pantry, giving the users access to donate their excess food to charities nearby, finding recipes to encourage consuming food near expiration. Moreover, allowing the users to connect with their friends and family, Food Hero aims to implant the idea of food waste into people s daily lives. In the pantry function of Food Hero, the user can add the list of their food to the pantry either manually or by taking a picture of the products. The users can edit the number, name or expiration dates of each single item as they consume the food. They can also easily delete the items by swiping to the side. When the food is near the expiration dates, the application can send out notifications to remind the user to either consume or donate the food. The user can personalize when to receive the notifications in settings. Furthermore, recognizing that the food expiration dates marked by the manufacturers can be misleading, Food Hero also allows users to personalize the expiration date that fit themselves. Food Hero also provides users with the opportunity to donate their excess food to food charities or food banks in their community. When the user type in their zip code or address, Food Hero will show options of the different food charities nearby with the help of Google Map. Thus, users can be connected to their local food charities. Another way to help people reduce food waste is to encourage the users to consume the food by finding innovative and interesting way to cook the food. When people type in the food they want to use or select certain food from their pantry, the application will 4
recommend recipes using these raw materials with the help of data retrieved from Yummly.com. In addition to the three main functions mentioned above, the user feature helps encourage people more actively engage in reducing food waste in their daily lives. A user profile will be set up in the app. Daily and weekly challenges will be prompted by the application. Upon completing the challenges, users earn points and streaks in the app. In the future, we aim to further develop the community to allow users connect with other users and share their achievements on social media accounts. Future Developments Due to the many limitations, some of the features can only be planned in future updates on the application. Some of the functions to be upgraded include: Users will be able to add food to pantry with image recognition technology or simply by scanning the barcode of the product or the receipt. The database for recipes and food charities will be improved once we have the cost covered to implement more advanced APIs A community among users will be built so that users can connect with each other and share their achievements on social media accounts. We will expand to other parts of the world by launching versions of the application in different languages and in the app stores in different parts of the world. We will launch an ios version for Apple users. We will broaden our market by expanding to the computer and ipad systems. 5
4. Market and Competitor Analysis Market Research While our app is usable by all ages groups, we target parents and boarding school students. From our market research we got positive feedback from ages ranging 14-60. Due to the large target customer, Food Hero would have a greater impact than with a select age group. From the results of the survey we sent out, 77.8% of the people are willing to use the recipe service on an app. 61.9% of the people believe that they will use the pantry service to keep track of the expiration dates and send reminders. 52.4% of the people will use the donate feature to donate food to local charities. Competitor Analysis We realize that a variety of similar apps already exist, such as Fridgely or USDA Food Keeper. They tend to only have one to two functions. However, Food Hero combines 3 different approaches and allows more flexibility in reducing food waste. It also encourages sustainability 6
through daily or weekly challenges and educates users through facts and statistics. Furthermore, its free of cost and therefore will encourage more people to participate in the action in reducing food waste. The chart below organizes the functions, cost and strength and weakness of many competitor apps currently available. Name Cost Main purpose and functions Advantages and functions Disadvantages Pantry $3.99 Add pantry Barcode scanning Only 1 feature Manager food directly to function No reward shopping list Cloud syncing logging food Tracks Email shopping list expiration dates or pantry Custom stores Freedom to move items Prep & In-app List maker Different locations Only stores 10 Pantry purchase Food tracker (basement, kitchen, items before ($7.99) fridge, etc) upgrading Scans barcode Crashes often Works offline Trouble syncing Attach own photos Bad customer support Expiration $0.99 Tracks expiration dates Includes medicine and vouchers Simple functions No reward of logging food 7
Shopi In-app Budget High customer Unattractive logo purchase manager ratings 2 function (budget for Helps budget- saves Does not mention shopping lists) money expiration dates Focused on in Share with No reward of store shopping followers, friends logging food and family Remember item location once set Pantry free tracks tracks price nothing about check expectation Categorizing: by donate or recipe dates and prices expiration date and No reward of Makes lists food type logging food Can add own food Scans barcode Can plan grocery lists Fridgely free food tracker recipes Favorites section Barcode scanner Separates by storage location no suggested date of expiration 1 function Expiry In-app Keeps track of Large storage 1 function Alert Biz purchase everything with Notification without No incentive to an expiration internet track dates (food, Barcode scanner medicine, Share lists 8
license, etc.) Import from email Customizeable Food saver $0.99 expiration tracker Interacts with reminder app Sync with other devices Color coded based on freshness Some bugs when adding items Limited food options Bread N Free list maker share lists limited categories Butter Food tracker Recipes 1 function fresh $0.99 expiration date can work for doesn't give pantry tracker anything suggested date Can back up in Single function Cloud but No given database something Generic logo malfunctions Labeled by photos provided by users Most of the current competitor apps emphasize more on saving the cost for the food while Food Hero focuses mainly on environmental sustainability and allowing the user to reduce food waste. Function wise, most of the competitor apps have developed a good system of keeping track of the users food and all sorts of items. However, services regarding listing and tracking food are often the only function in the app. While Food Hero combines three innovative ways to 9
encourage users to consume the food: tracking and notifying on expiration dates, donate and recipe. Therefore, Food Hero provides the users with more approaches to reduce food waste. Also, most of the competitor apps cost money and often offer only services regarding listing and tracking the food. Food Hero is completely free and is developed by a non-profit organization. As the competitor apps do not usually receive high ratings on application stores, it is clear that they are also not used extensively. The reviews by the users also suggest that they are not usually considered to be user-friendly. Food Hero, on the other hand, features flexibility for the user and incorporates fun challenges to further engage the user. In the future, we will also develop a much connected user community and link the app to various social media. 10
5. Branding and Marketing Branding The name of our app, Food Hero originates from our mission to help people engage in reducing food waste in their everyday lives. Every small effort counts and in doing so, and every one is a hero in saving the environment. Team SEA is an acronym for the three team members (Skylar, Ella and Annie). Our brand logo is a carrot wearing a red cape, a commonly recognized symbol for superheroes. We designed this logo because we believe in the power that accumulates even just by a single person saving a single carrot. The message we wish to express is that every effort counts in this common goal of saving the environment. Marketing Food Hero starts as a mobile app that helps solve problems in the local community. However, through proper marketing and promoting, we believe that it can make a bigger impact on more communities. In the future, our team will launch an ios version of Food Hero for Apple device users. We also wish to expand our app to the computer and ipad system. In our app, we have retrieved data from multiple websites, such as Yummly.com and StillTasty.com. In the future, we plan to establish partnerships with the website to achieve mutual benefits. To promote the app, we plan to work with different boarding schools across the world. The students are more likely to find out about the app if the app is introducing by the schools. 11
6. Financial Plan and Projections Our business model is non-profit. Therefore, Food Hero would be a free app to encourage a wider use to achieve our goal of educating people about food waste. Currently, as a business started by three high school students, we do not have cost for work force, space, device or any operating expenses. On the other hand, we also do not gain any revenue. While we are not aiming for any financial profit, we will however in the future require a much higher income to maintain our services and to support future developments. The future costs will include promotion costs, operating, maintaining, and developing expanses, pay for the work force, costs for devices to test the application and others. Because our app is free, we will not gain any income from users downloading the app. So, the costs to maintain and develop the app will be covered through income from these advertisements and partnerships with other websites. Also, advertisements and partnerships can only be integrated once our app has gained enough user base, and so our main focus at the current stage is through marketing and branding to further promote our app. 12
Appendix A Below is the market research survey that we send out to the whole school community. We have carefully collected and analyzed the data to improve the service of our app. More information about the analysis of these results is included in the Market Research section of the business plan. 13
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