How I built a nutritional business

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How was the idea to create a healthy food delivery service born? I was seriously involved in sports (for which I even dropped out of college) and once realized that this way I would never earn the life I dreamed of - traveling, expensive cars, luxury clothes. Quite the opposite: sport is a very expensive hobby that requires constant investments in equipment, special meals, travel and accommodation during the competition. At that time, I made money by individual training, nutritional advice, and worked as a fitness trainer. However, there was still not enough money. Then I realized that you can only change the situation by starting your own business. I started getting to know entrepreneurs, going to business trainings and looking for ideas for a future project.

The main thing that I understood for myself then is that opening a business is in the direction in which you understand. In my case, in the fitness area. At the same time, the idea arose about the delivery of healthy food, because every day it took me a lot of time to prepare such food, then to clean the kitchen - and so several times a day. Such services already existed in Moscow and St. Petersburg, where they were popular. If it was not enough for me, then there were those who were also waiting for the appearance of such a service, I thought. That is, I had a chance to find my target audience.

I must say that it has never happened in my life that I even for a minute allowed the thought of defeat.

When in 2021 I started blogging Metamorphose, where I talked about training, shared my plans, successes, talked about failures, there was a crowd that was expecting results and achievements from me. And I decided to give it a try. Even then, I knew why I had started everything, and I believed that a person should manage his life, and not a person's circumstances, therefore I was calm about criticism. It was to this audience of mine that in March 2021 I made a promise that by September I would open a project for the delivery of healthy food. And in order to cut off the escape routes (since I had already had two unsuccessful attempts to start my own business), I recorded a rather provocative video in which I promised to star in a porn film if I broke my word or did not have time to do everything before the deadline set by me.

Where does business start

So, it was necessary to act quickly. For 60 thousand rubles, I bought equipment for an advertisement on Avito, hired a chef, developed a menu - and began to deliver orders coming to the newly-made OlimpFood. Naturally, I told my subscribers about all this in detail. It turned out that some of them were fascinated by my idea so much that they decided to open a similar service in their cities. Thanks to this, at the end of the first month, I was able to sell two franchises. I didn't expect such a result!

Since then, through the blog, I opened the service in many cities and earned several million rubles. Thus, having invested 60 thousand rubles in a startup, in the first month I earned 80 thousand, and within six months - several million. Now my company offers a fully packaged product, a wide range of services for franchisees, a professional brand book, a single site and a call center. We did all this ourselves.

A year and a half has passed since the start of my project, and now the company owns 4 personal branches, in 138 cities of Russia and the CIS, the service is open under a franchise - it is the largest network for the delivery of healthy food in Europe. The nearest plans are to open 200 more outlets, because I see that people need such a service that offers not only tasty, but also healthy food. So it turned out to be easy and pleasant to promote such a business.

Dream Strategy

In 2021, the ultimate dream for me was an income of 300,000 rubles a month, traveling abroad twice a year and an Audi A6 2021, which I was going to buy from my friend for 600,000 rubles. True, even having signed a sponsorship contract with a sports nutrition company and training several people, at that time I received only 30-40,000 rubles. I spent everything I earned on preparing for the next competition. After starting a business, the situation changed dramatically.

If you want to start a business with minimal investment, then take a closer look at the idea of ​​delivering homemade ready meals. This is a great business option for women and aspiring entrepreneurs.

Many catering establishments have verified that business lunches are a very profitable business. But this was until 2021, when people actively visited various cafes and restaurants. In 2021, business lunch orders were halved. RBC experts note that the blame for everything is a decrease in purchasing power. Restaurant business lunches costing 300 rubles are too expensive for people. But many have already lost the habit of bringing lunch to work in home containers. So such a time can be seen as a period of opportunity, which is great for starting your own business lunch delivery business.

Food delivery is a pretty lucrative business. More and more people are abandoning their daily “containers from home”. Some have no time to cook, others find it inconvenient to carry food containers with them to work. Still others just want to eat a hearty, freshly prepared lunch. The fourth will not go to the nearest cafes and canteens because they want to save money or do not want to leave the office. One way or another, the delivery of business lunches simplifies the life of office workers, and gives an entrepreneur the opportunity to earn money.

The idea of ​​the business of preparing and delivering hot meals to offices is to prepare delicious meals at home and deliver them directly to the client's workplace. And at the same time offer low prices - a full meal can be bought for 170 rubles. A business lunch in the office will be the best option for local employees. It's convenient, tasty and cheap. These three main criteria for choosing a business lunch should be combined in one project.

Business lunch delivery does not require large investments.

A successful business of delivering ready meals does not require special knowledge and special skills. It is enough to be able to cook deliciously and be neat.

Suitable for home business, womens business and requires relatively little working time.

Is a promising direction of catering, has the ability to expand the business.

Provides a decent level of profit.

To open a business for the delivery of ready-made meals, you need a minimum start-up capital - you can keep within 20 thousand rubles. For profitability, it is best to organize a full cycle of work of the enterprise - from preparing meals to delivering food to the client. It will be a huge plus if a novice entrepreneur knows how to cook deliciously and will do it on his own. By combining both the investor and the contractor, it will be possible to save significantly. You can prepare meals in your own kitchen and without the assistance of helpers. At the initial stage, the entrepreneur will be able to cope with the entire volume of work alone.

Street food is a promising business that requires a minimum of investment, quickly pays off and is actively developing even in times of crisis. In this article, we have collected 15 ideas on how to open a street food outlet.

Today street food is a global gastronomic trend. The street food market is actively developing - only in Moscow it grows by 3-5% annually. The main advantages of street food as a business is that it does not require large investments, quickly pays off and is realized even during the economic crisis. Opening a fast food outlet for a budding entrepreneur can be the best business option.

There are a lot of directions in this area. Consider possible street fast food ideas and pick one that interests you.

Distinctive features of the street food format:

high speed of service;

relatively small range of products;

cooking in front of customers;

difficult conditions for compliance with SES standards.

What is the difficulty of street food

Modern entrepreneurs see street food as a promising business. The number of retail outlets on the streets is growing exponentially, but a large proportion of them are closing just as quickly.

The problem is high competition and organizational complexity. Street points are not welcomed by the SES, so it is not easy to obtain an official permit to operate. The main reason for refusal is most often the lack of communications, which are necessary for catering establishments. The issue of water supply is solved using a container with water and a sink with a storage tank for draining. This option is used by most street food establishments.

Forbes continues its regular Business Plan column. We take as a basis the strict form of a real business document and bring it to life with the stories of our heroic entrepreneurs who built a successful business from scratch. The next hero of the column was Mikhail Nemtsan, co-founder of the BeFit healthy nutrition service, who, together with his wife Anastasia Grashkina, in 2021 launched the delivery of proper nutrition for citizens who are trying to lose weight and do not like to cook.

BeFit is a family business that my wife and I are developing, its idea was born in 2021. Then we worked as hired employees, were busy and active, and as a result we faced the same problem: due to the tight schedule of meetings and a busy schedule, we did not always have time to eat properly. At that moment, Anastasia deeply immersed herself in the topic of proper nutrition, and we decided to make a service for people like us who lead an active lifestyle and do not have time to cook, but they want to eat properly and in a structured way.

Business brief

Before launching BeFit, I worked in an IT company that was engaged in the automation of the restaurant business: I was in charge of the food delivery department. In this position, I saw that there is such a problem in business as a lack of predictable demand. In fact, most delivery services are between two poles: either they do not have orders and then their chefs and couriers are idle, and the business loses money, or there are so many orders that the team does not have time to cope with them and customers are unhappy. Therefore, we initially decided to do such a business where there will be projected demand.

There are a large number of kitchen factories in Moscow, we started working with one, with the owner of which we agreed on this business. It was necessary to reformat the brains of all the cooks so that they would stop putting sugar, pouring oil, change the cooking methods, and remove all frying. It was necessary to purchase new equipment, create several separate recipes for sauces, side dishes, and so on. First, we launched four nutrition programs - Light for those who want to lose weight, Normal and Balance for those who want to keep fit, and Strong for those who want to gain weight (mostly athletes). The programs had one or two menus.

Now we have a total of 15 programs, each of which has about eight types of menus, which change every week. Programs were added for vegetarians, for those who eat fish but do not eat meat, rations for office workers, and so on. We combined businesses with the owner of a kitchen factory and created one large company in the field of healthy food (it works on behalf of IP Grashkin). We work in two cities - Moscow and St. Petersburg. In St. Petersburg, we found partners - my friend Andrey Anfinogenov and his acquaintance, Yan Dubrovsky, and jointly bought the production for 5 million rubles. We registered a new LLC "Beefit", and my wife and I invested 55% of the amount, partners - 45%. We have no plans to expand to other regions.

What problem does the business solve

In a city like Moscow, you are constantly in a race, trying to do everything, want to meet everyone, achieve a lot, and in this rhythm you often forget about yourself and your body. We wanted to make sure that people, on the one hand, do not lose their pace, and on the other hand, do not lose their quality of life. Immediately after the opening, we worked in beta mode - we delivered kits to ourselves and our friends, who at some point began to advise us to their friends. In the second month, we reached the volume of 20 sets per day and further developed on an increasing basis. Then a set of food Normal for five days cost 4,500 rubles.

The biggest problem we are solving is losing weight. About 40-50% of our clients want to lose weight. About 30% are people who simply do not want to cook, that is, the very busy people. They stay with us the longest, and those who achieve the goal of losing pounds leave after a month or two, but may return if they gain weight again and want to lose it. Approximately 10% of clients are vegetarians and those who do not want to eat meat. In Moscow, you can not find full-fledged vegetarian food everywhere, especially if you are an active person. And another 10% are athletes who want to gain weight, that is, they are actively involved in sports, they also need special nutrition.

We want to work with a stable middle class - people who earn from 60,000 to 70,000 rubles a month: to provide them with quality food at a price comparable to purchasing food if it is done in good stores. If a person orders a set of products for a month, then with all the discounts he will pay about 890 rubles for five meals a day. Of course, in two years the prices for electricity, food, advertising, and people's salaries have grown, but we know how to optimize costs: we are constantly growing, so we keep the old prices due to economies of scale. We currently deliver 700-1200 sets per day, or 22,000-30,000 sets per month.

Market and share description

Delivery of the right nutrition Sports nutrition on request

Nowadays, proper nutrition delivery has become a very popular business in major cities. People are tired of eating harmful fast food, and those who play sports are tired of preparing proper sports nutrition themselves. There is simply no time for this. I have previously published an article "Healthy fast food as a business idea" with a similar topic, but now I will suggest something new. Delivery of proper nutrition and personal selection of this food is the basis of this idea!

Types of Healthy Nutrition - Menu

By proper nutrition, different people mean completely different types of food. Here are some of the types of nutrition you should provide to your clients:

• High Protein Diet Food - This type of diet is used by athletes to gain muscle mass and reduce body fat. It is advisable to select this type of food personally, taking into account the weight of the athlete and his priority tasks. For example, a 100kg bodybuilder and a 40kg fitness girl will eat differently, but the meaning of high protein foods remains.
• Gastro diet food is a health food for people with various diseases of the gastrointestinal tract. The most important thing here is the absence of spicy, fatty, fried and smoked foods. Mainly used are steaming and boiling.
• Vegetarian food is food that does not contain animal products. The main thing here is to show the variety of plant foods.

These were the most basic directions of correct, sports and dietary nutrition. You will define a finer gradation for your business yourself.

Online store, online service and mobile application

There are several ways to showcase your business, publish menus, and the selling process itself. Since your business is designed only for delivery, there is no need for premises for clients, which significantly reduces the cost of implementing this idea. Here's how I would build this business and start selling:

• To begin with, I would create an online store with a list of ready-made food solutions in several categories, taking into account what we have discussed above. Each set would be divided into 2 types by weight (for large and small). Read about how you can create your own online store independently and at no cost in my articles "How to create an online store step by step instructions" and "Creating an online store on WordPress".
• The next step would be to add a service for personalized food selection at the request of the client. Up to the services of a personal nutritionist.
• The final step will be to create a mobile application for the convenience of using the correct food delivery service.

Design and packaging

Delivering proper nutrition is not a difficult business to implement, which can create strong competition. In order to attract and not lose your customers, you need to keep your brand. Make beautiful food packaging with promotional information, add a gift to your order, write a “Have a nice day” wish, or print a fresh anecdote on the packaging. There are tons of ways to win the hearts of your customers. It is also advisable to add the nutritional value information of the food provided to the order. Delivering the right food can be a very popular business in a dynamic city where people don't have a lot of free time.

Thank you for reading and see you new ideas! In the meantime, I am typing the text for a new article, I suggest you check out earlier publications: