Executive summary
The market of sustainable fruits and vegetables, which are organic, local or seasonal products, has been growing these past few years in Belgium. Changes in people’s mentalities over food production have impacted the way we produce and consume food: farmers have become more sensitive to their waste and to their uses of pesticides and consumers have been paying attention to how their food got into their plates.
The sudden growth of the demand of such products has forced producers to find solutions to provide them, but these solutions are not ideal. For example, most organic fruits and vegetables are produced outside of Belgium although most traditional fruits and vegetables sold in Belgium are produced there. This situation doesn't allow consumers to have both healthy organic products and fresh eco-friendly ones at the same time.
EcoShelves is a new company that would solve this problem, as well as many other social problems, by producing and selling fruits and vegetables using vertical farming mechanisms. The company will be constituted on the 1st January 2016 and will open a shop in the municipality of Watermael-Boitsfort. The fruits and vegetables that the company is going to produce on its upper floors would directly be sold to consumers in a shop on the first floor, thus providing the healthiest and most eco-friendly food on the market.
Factors such as the competitors on the market or environmental factors were taken into account to determine the strengths, weaknesses, threats and opportunities of our company. Although there are many competitors that sell ecological products, none of them are able to answer to the demand for sustainable products as well as we do.
A survey we conducted by interviewing people in strategical locations in Brussels allowed us to see how our potential consumers would react to our products. It helped us find what was most important to people and what their biggest fears where. Then, it allowed us to segment our market and to choose the consumers we wanted to target. A communication plan revealed how we were going to transmit our message to this targeted audience.
Finally, a financial plan was conducted to help us see if and when our project was profitable. It revealed that, although the company would not be immediately profitable in the first few years of its creation because of the important sunk costs that are needed to set up the project, it would be profitable later on.