Food Preparation Business Plan Sample

Meal prep business plan for starting your own cooking service

Are you curious to know about a business in which you will be constantly interacting with people, helping them in their lives while generating a large amount of profit? You can start that dream business by opening a food preparation center.

To know how to start a meal prep business, read this document thoroughly in which we have provided a sample business plan of food preparation business startup named, ‘Cooking Court.’

Executive Summary

2.1 The Business

Jolie Swinton will be starting a meal prep business  in Denver, named as Cooking Court. Cooking Court will be a food preparation service in which people can cook by themselves, or with the help of our chefs or can also purchase cooked food.

2.2 Management

If you are starting your business by renting a space or if you are starting in your own house, you will need to plan very carefully in both cases. So, if you are looking for how to start a meal prep business from home  or outside you have to devise management plan first. As food preparation business is a business in which you have to take care of many details such as providing fresh material to your customers timely and managing the place where they will have to cook.

2.3 Customers

We are fortunate in a way that we have a very large group of people who can prove to be our long term customers. Our customers will be young, men and women who have to manage home tasks along-with jobs and senior citizens who want to have a good social interaction while doing work for themselves.

2.4 Target of the Company

Our target is to serve our customers with the best. If they want to cook by themselves then we’ll be a source of continuous help for them, otherwise, we’ll be serving them by putting in time and effort to make according to what they want.

Operational and Strategic Planning

This deliverable will contain a business development road map that will help the company achieve its goals and become a market leader.

Company Summary

3.1 Company Owner

Jolie Swinton will be the owner of the company. Jolie is an educated landlady, famous as an effective woman in her area. She has six years’ experience in managing resorts as well and a two-year experience while being a chef.

3.2 Why the meal prep business is being started

Jolie is the owner of a large piece of land and lives with just her husband and two children in that home. To indulge her in a socializing and interesting activity whilst using the space in her home, she has decided to open up a meal prepping business. This will be a great platform for her to use her intellect, resources, and experience to benefit herself and others.

3.3 How the meal prep business will be started

Jolie will hire chefs and assistants to prepare food for the customers, to bring the required things needed by customers, and to manage the dining lists and schedules, and lastly to clean the facility. To be organized, and deciding the strategy, Jolie has decided to study various personal chef business plans before actually making one for her.

The detailed start-up requirements, start-up funding, start-up expenses, total assets, total funding required, total liabilities, total planned investment, total capital and liabilities as forecasted by company’s analysts, is given below:

Products

Before looking for how to start a food prep business, you have to decide several important things one of which is the range of services you’ll provide. The products and services decided by Jolie to be provided to her customers are:

• Kitchen equipment: Facility of kitchen equipment, kitchen utensils, menus and ingredients according to the order of customers for if they want to prepare their food by themselves
• Assistant chefs: Assistant Chef to help if one hasn’t much experience of cooking
• Homemade foods: Prepared delicious homemade traditional and American foods
• Desserts and drinks

By providing these facilities we’ll be saving our customers from the worry of buying grocery and cleaning the kitchen equipment. Moreover, we’ll be offering packaging facilities for those who want to take food home.

Marketing Analysis of Food Preparation Business

Before starting a food prep business, do quick research on the market in which you are starting your home based cooking business to know whether that market needs your services or not.

5.1 Marketing Segmentation

After identifying the people who can serve as their potential customers, Cooking Court has divided them into groups of three to focus on their expectations out of this business separately. The marketing segmentation done by Cooking Court is given in this personal chef business plan sample.

5.1.1 Family Households: Our major customers will be the families living near to our business area. They will find it convenient to cook the food they want with the help of an assistant without the worry of buying groceries and cleaning kitchen equipment. We also expect them to buy our prepared homemade foods.

5.1.2 Senior Citizens: This category will include the elderly people who will have a chance to socialize with people while preparing quality food for themselves by themselves. It is difficult for elders to prepare food for themselves from scratch i.e. buying ingredients, cleaning them, cooking them and then cleaning the utensils especially when they don’t have any helper.

5.1.3 Young & Adults: Last group of our target customers will comprise of the young people who have a tough routine doing jobs. Through us, they will be saved from the strain of such a tedious task of preparing a meal.

The detailed market analysis of our potential customers is given in the following table:

5.2 Business Target

Our target is to serve our customers either by providing prepared food or by helping them in preparing theirs. Besides, the financial target which we want to achieve is:

• To achieve the net profit margin of $10k per month by the end of the first year, $15k per month by the end of the second year, and $25k per month by the end of the third year

5.3 Product Pricing

The price of our products and services is neither very high nor too low. We want our customers to have a perfect experience and that is only possible when we don’t have to compromise on prices of selling food from home.

Strategy

Your strategy for business to start and run your business successfully is also an important part of your meal prep business plan. In this sample food business plan, we are presenting a way to plan your business, specifically in this part we will be focusing on the methods to advertise your food preparation business.

6.1 Competitive Analysis

Our biggest competitive advantage is that we don’t have any direct competitor near to our business area. The area in which we are starting our business is more of residential than commercial, so we have a very bright chance to attract the category which we identified as our target customers. Secondly, we will not only provide our customers with space but also with fresh and cleaned vegetables, meat, dairy and whatever they order us.

Another thing that counts in our competitive edge is Jolie’s social relationships with the residents and community groups. Lastly, we will make a website through which our customers will be able to read the schedules and order the required things if they want some change in the menu we have made.

6.2 Sales Strategy

We will adopt the following methods for the advertisement of the business.

• We’ll advertise our services and products through the local newspaper
• We’ll arrange a free dinner party on the inauguration day to let people know about the taste and quality of our products
• We’ll give free service for the first three days of launch

6.3 Sales Monthly

6.4 Sales Yearly

6.5 Sales Forecast

We believe that due to our unique idea, the opportunity to socialize with groups and the facility of preparing and buying homemade foods will eventually result in increased profits day by days. Our sales on a yearly basis as forecasted by marketing analyst is summarized in the following column chart.

The detailed information about sales forecast, total unit sales, total sales is given in the following table:

Personnel plan

You don’t need very large manpower to run meal preparation business, even if you are starting in your home you need just three to four persons for your help.

It is not the number of employees that is important, it is their dedication, customer care-oriented behavior and sense of responsibility which will be playing a part in making your reputation. So, you have to hire your staff by carefully testing their skills.

7.1 Company Staff

Jolie will supervise the customers by herself however, she will hire the following staff:

• 1 General Assistant for bringing grocery, and performing packaging and salesman services
• 4 Chefs to prepare food and help customers preparing theirs
• 2 Cleaners for cleaning the facility continuously
• 1 Accountant for receiving cash and managing financial accounts

7.2 Average Salary of Employees

The following table shows the forecasted data about employees and their salaries for the next three years.

Financial Plan

Now, when you have gone through all the steps to start your own business the last decisive thing is your financial plan. Your financial plan must include the ways to balance your advertisement and startup costs with the profits earned and the amount you have to put in reserve for if you will be unable to earn your expected profits. It is the only part of your business plan for food products in which you will need to make business continuity plan sample revisions and alterations according to the revenues you are generating.

In this meal prep business plan template, we are providing the financial plan of Cooking Court, you can take help from it, but it is advised to get this important task done by an expert financial analyst according to your finances and investments.

8.1 Important Assumptions

The company’s financial projections are forecasted on the basis of the following assumptions.

8.2 Brake-even Analysis

8.3 Projected Profit and Loss

8.3.1 Profit Monthly

8.3.2 Profit Yearly

8.3.3 Gross Margin Monthly

8.3.4 Gross Margin Yearly

8.4 Projected Cash Flow

8.5 Projected Balance Sheet

8.6 Business Ratios

Download sample business plan for food business in pdf

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