Venture Concept No.1

My opportunity is unsatisfied UF students, including myself, with the UF dining services and the limited healthy food options on-campus. Students that live, or just eat, on-campus between classes have this unmet need. Most restaurants on-campus provide fast-food services, which means low-quality and mostly fried food. These are also often limited to cuisines that are most popular in the US, like classic American, Asian and Tex-Mex food. Broward dining center, which is the major dining center, is also overpriced for the quality of food it serves. There are many international students that can’t find authentic cuisines on-campus because most fast food is Americanized. In addition to that, there are students that would like to add into their meal plan restaurants that are not currently on-campus. Moreover, students don’t have the time and motivation to prepare their own meals if they live off-campus, because of their heavy workload. The forces in the environment creating this opportunity is basically the cheap and fast food for busy students that live on-campus. How customers currently satisfy this need is by cooking at home, eating mostly salads and fruits or getting Krishna lunch, which is vegetarian food. These customers are pretty loyal to what they are using, since it is less costly to eat at home, but it’s time consuming for students that have classes all day long. Krishna lunch is very popular as well, but its hours are limited to lunch time. This opportunity is big because with my idea I can create a healthy student community that will appreciate different international cuisines. I will also have the opportunity to satisfy a big number of students that leave on-campus.

The service I’m offering students is a new restaurant on-campus that will be hosting cooks around Gainesville and will be promoting their restaurant menus. The cooks will be cooking food from different cuisines that will cover multiple diet preferences, like vegans, vegetarians and meat lovers. I will this way provide fresh and healthy food to students from famous restaurants, or even new ones. There will be 1 different cook per day cooking for us lunch and dinner. More specifically, there will be 10 different cooks every 10 days. The food will be ready an hour in advance the restaurant opens and will be kept refrigerated so that it is fresh and safe when served to them. To approach more customers and make more money I will provide the menu of the day through a free app. This app will also give the chance to students to order one extra plate for half-price to go. There will also be discount coupons from supermarkets, like Lucky’s, Publix, Trader Joe’s etc. distributed to everyone that gets a meal, so that students are encouraged to buy their own groceries for cheaper. The deals will also be posted on the app as the “Save of the Day”. Students that are in a hurry can order food to go. The next new thing I’ve come up with is a fresh produce corner in which I will be selling fresh veggies, herbs and fruits produced on the backyard of the restaurant. Students can volunteer to help grow them. Therefore creating a strong-bonded community that cares about the food it produces. If students don’t want to buy any of the fresh produce they will be given fresh produce in a snack-size box before they leave, as a gift for joining us in our effort of sharing healthy food. All of these services will provide students fresh, healthy, diverse and reasonably prized food right on-campus. They will never get bored of it and they will get to enjoy food that they may have never tried before. They will also get accustomed to what there is out on the market to use in preparing their own meals. Essentially, what I’m selling is the opportunity to start eating healthy and to explore new cuisines for just $5-7.

My innovation will solve the opportunity by encouraging students to engage with fresh and healthy food, besides going only for the cheap fast-food options. By “awarding” them with fresh produce and giving out discount coupons I give them the motivation to go and take advantage of this opportunity of changing habits and start caring more of what they consume. I want to think I can provide them with the resources that are not yet available on-campus; the ones that provide students with healthier food options. And because I know students are pretty hungry I offer them the option to get one more full plate for just half price (just $2.5-3.5 extra). This opportunity will also promote the cooks’ skills and the restaurants they are working for. So it is a win-win for everyone. I don’t believe it will be very hard to get students try out my restaurant since I will be providing them with food they are accustomed to, but also the chance to try something new. I will also have a lot of “gifts” for them to develop their own loyalty to my restaurant. I believe students would actually switch to my new restaurant because of the diverse cuisines and the guaranteed vegetarian and vegan options. I know vegan and vegetarian option are limited on-campus. My competitors would have to be the fast-food restaurants on-campus that provide students quick, low-quality and cheap food. Their weaknesses are basically that they have standard menus and students get eventually bored of their food options. As I already mentioned I will be hosting 10 different cooks that will be coming every 10 days, so that if someone misses them one day, they will have the chance to come to the restaurant and enjoy the cook’s food the next week. The next month there will be 10 other different cooks coming in. The rest of the fresh food production that will be happening on the back of the restaurant will be student-managed. The cook, depending on their available time, can stay interact with the students or can leave once they’re done. In any case, there will always be culinary and other students helping them out with cleaning pantries, keeping track of the orders and keeping the food safe.

My most important resource in my business would be my passion for the wellness of the student community and the eagerness to raise awareness on how to eat healthy. All of the employers will be willing to help out and care about their customers. I am personally a very positive person and I encourage people to become better and be strong. My venture will promote exactly this. It will also bring people together through food and through sharing common worries and struggles. This caring spirit of my business would be hard for competitors to copy.

In five years, I would love to be an entrepreneur that would create projects to raise awareness of how to eat healthy. I believe my first venture will be a first step that will make a BIG difference and hopefully have a huge impact on people’s eating habits. My goal is to start here and continue spreading awareness outside of Gainesville. My projects could also be a result of my research on food products; hence my major in chemistry. I always had a passion about food and would love to do research on it to improve its quality and keep the food safe and clean for others.