am I too cheap ?

[Falconhoof]

I've been doing these veg boxes for about 6 months now, people rave about them but I struggle to grow as I have no cash to invest and work from a garage space at home.

 

So this week i'm selling a recipe kit for a yellow bean chow mein, noodles, pak choi, fruit and traditional veg, yadda yadda

Its £18 with free local delivery.

 

I just sometimes wonder, and I know its early days, but how do i take this to another level. 

There's a fella down the road, in Knutsford who sells 300 boxes a week, nowhere near as good as mine, and more expensive. How do I get there without losing quality.

 

https://www.deliveroot.co.uk/boxes-fruit-and-veggies

[Molby]

I've been doing these veg boxes for about 6 months now, people rave about them but I struggle to grow as I have no cash to invest and work from a garage space at home.

 

So this week i'm selling a recipe kit for a yellow bean chow mein, noodles, pak choi, fruit and traditional veg, yadda yadda

Its £18 with free local delivery.

 

I just sometimes wonder, and I know its early days, but how do i take this to another level.

There's a fella down the road, in Knutsford who sells 300 boxes a week, nowhere near as good as mine, and more expensive. How do I get there without losing quality.

 

https://www.deliveroot.co.uk/boxes-fruit-and-veggies

Stop hustling and start leveraging

[Sir Tokyo Sexwale]

how many do you/can you make to sell? Assuming you sell them all

 

How much are the raw materials - seeds, plants etc? Do you have to replant or can you harvest?

 

How long do you have to attend to the raw materials to get them to the stage they're ready?

 

I assume you don't deliver a la carte but in batches? How long do you spend driving, and how many miles - think fuel costs, mileage for wear and tear

 

What's the minimum wage in the UK? Double it and apply that to your time spent. Add your costs - fuel, materials, packing, wear & tear - and mark them up say 20%

 

Then apply your final number to the number you can make

 

Do you have to charge VAT? Does 18 quid make a single serving or more? Free delivery is defo something people love

[Cam]

I've. 

There's a fella down the road, in Knutsford who sells 300 boxes a week. How do I get there without losing quality.

 

M6, A5033 then the A537.

[Falconhoof]

how many do you/can you make to sell? Assuming you sell them all

 

How much are the raw materials - seeds, plants etc? Do you have to replant or can you harvest?

 

How long do you have to attend to the raw materials to get them to the stage they're ready?

 

I assume you don't deliver a la carte but in batches? How long do you spend driving, and how many miles - think fuel costs, mileage for wear and tear

 

What's the minimum wage in the UK? Double it and apply that to your time spent. Add your costs - fuel, materials, packing, wear & tear - and mark them up say 20%

 

Then apply your final number to the number you can make

 

Do you have to charge VAT? Does 18 quid make a single serving or more? Free delivery is defo something people love

You make great points and I should make more calculations. I add everything up in my head, based on cost of the ingredients.

I don’t grow by the way, I buy from farms and marketplace.

Then I add on 7-8 quid a box

But people can pick their own from my website and so I need to make sure those fruit and veg are priced correctly.

 

I’m mainly focussed on expanding my customer base rather than profitability.

My instinct tells me that if I convert enough people and can survive on below minimum wage then later on I will be able to rationalise the whole operation.

There’s greater efficiency to be made. For example, 3 days a week I drive a 2 hour round trip to outlying villages for minimal reward. I think I should concentrate on the towns, but it’s all trial and error.

[Molby]

Did you pay attention?

Start leveraging

[Falconhoof]

Did you pay attention?

Start leveraging

Can you break this down into real world action points please ?

[New York Red]

A few things:

 

How is your packaging? Is it unique and appealing?

 

Who are you targeting? Is your packaging appealing to that market?

 

Have you looked at setting your product apart? Can you grow it yourself or buy from a top-notch organic supplier?

 

How are you reaching out to your target market and can you make them believers?

Your product may be a Giffen Good. The more you charge for it, the more a demand there is for it. But with that comes a lot of hard work and developing of a cult following. 

[Falconhoof]

My packaging is fairly unique, minimal, almost no plastic. I use paper bags and boxes or wood crates.

 

I’m only targeting people on local Facebook forums as that’s free advertising. I’ve yet to market any other way.

 

My product is local farm produce where possible and people like that. I combine that with imported produce because at this time of year, not enough varieties grow in the U.K.

 

I’m ticking a lot of boxes, and new customers come on board. Maybe I should be patient.

[cymrococh]

What about a subscription model?

[Barnesy_10]

What about a subscription model?

I was thinking the same... Regular deliveries... Weekly, fortnightly etc

 

The website has some broken links on it too.. Its usually off-putting when you end up wrestling with a website.

 

Also the Facebook and Twitter links take you to Wix pages

 

Set up your own Twitter, Facebook and Instagram for your company...

Edit: I see you have social media pages already but not much push on them. Invest a bit of time in keeping them updated.

 

It can't be underestimated how effective they can be. Get photos of the source of the produce. Speak to your source and am sure they will be happy for you to go along and take photos which you can post and show the process of how it goes from the farm to the door.

 

Get friends sharing the s*** out of it on social media too

Edited February 2, 2019 by Barnesy_10

[cymrococh]

Contaminate the veggies with cbd oil, thereby making your customers even more hungry!

[Barnesy_10]

Also the meal bundles... Chow Mein is a little obscure.. Look at casserole bundles and have varieties of more traditional home cooked foods that most people tend to make using such produce.

[Kvarme Ate My Food]

Is there someone who can invest a few grand to help you scale faster?

[Falconhoof]

Also the meal bundles... Chow Mein is a little obscure.. Look at casserole bundles and have varieties of more traditional home cooked foods that most people tend to make using such produce.

It’s chinese new year

[muleskinner]

Have you got you next promo lined up and ready to go?

[Falconhoof]

Have you got you next promo lined up and ready to go?

I have to work day to day.

I’ve got 6 boxes to pack and deliver today, a large order for a new customer, a children’s nursery tomorrow, and then it all starts on Monday again.

It’s too much work for one but not enough to pay someone full time.

I have a part time delivery driver and I give her £10 an hour but she can only work a few hours like 12-2.30

[Barnesy_10]

It’s chinese new year

Yeah I get that.

 

It's good linking it up with current things like that but it seems a bit sparse with other traditional options which will more likely be of interest to your target audience who probably want to make pies, soups and casseroles over chow mein.

[muleskinner]

I have to work day to day.

I’ve got 6 boxes to pack and deliver today, a large order for a new customer, a children’s nursery tomorrow, and then it all starts on Monday again.

It’s too much work for one but not enough to pay someone full time.

I have a part time delivery driver and I give her £10 an hour but she can only work a few hours like 12-2.30

It sounds like it's going well, maybe just have a steady solid seasonal,offering rather than themed promos? Expansion for small business is difficult and fraught with cost, hard to stick or twist. Wish you all the best with it.

[Falconhoof]

Yeah I get that.

 

It's good linking it up with current things like that but it seems a bit sparse with other traditional options which will more likely be of interest to your target audience who probably want to make pies, soups and casseroles over chow mein.

You don’t have to have a set box. A number of my regular buyers pick their own individual fruit and veg each week from my website. Add to shopping cart and pay online.

It’s difficult to please everyone but I’ve changed those boxes every 7-10 days

Sometimes it’s more traditional veg based. In the summer I use fresh peas and English grown corn cobs

 

One of my boxes has all of this for £20 delivered

butternut squash

cucumber

little gem lettuce x2

finest vine tomatoes

Maris Piper potatoes

cauliflower

broccoli

savoy cabbage or kale

courgette

Chillis red

carrots cheshire grown

fresh beansprouts 500g

onions 500g

mushrooms closed cup

Galia melon or Mango

bananas x3

Grapes or satsumas x4 or clementines x4

seville bitter oranges x3

Sage

Rosemary

fennel bulb

 

The fennel, rosemary, sage, seville bitter oranges and red chillis are there with a recipe in mind. Its a tray bake with chicken or vegetables.

[muleskinner]

Looking at that list I think you are too cheap. People who are prepared to pay for a veg box delivery would pay more, even a couple if quid, for top quality produce.

[Gethin]

You got a decent local restaurant you could potentially partner with? Something like they design the recipes for you and you could co promote each other. They do “veg supplies by” on their menu, you do “recipes designed by” and maybe a discount voucher in with the boxes?

Edited February 2, 2019 by Gethin

[Falconhoof]

You got a decent local restaurant you could potentially partner with? Something like they design the recipes for you and you could co promote each other. They do “veg supplies by” on their menu, you do “recipes designed by” and maybe a discount voucher in with the boxes?

There’s a woman who runs Indian cookery classes. We’ve chatted about something like this but I pause because her customer reach is even smaller than mine, so for the effort of organising it I do t think it would pull in as many new customers as a Facebook post to a local group that takes me 5 minutes.

 

The business nearby is called groobarbs and they sell at least 5 or 6 times what I do, but they have been doing it for several years, and they run it from their own farm, and the guys dad already had applejacks adventure farm so that must have helped get them going.

I should give myself a break, I’ve sold about 1200 boxes in my first six months.

Sometimes you just feel like you’ve grafted all week for no reward.

[Hassony]

Is there someone who can invest a few grand to help you scale faster?

Or set up a GoFundMe campaign to get extra investment in

[D.Boon]

I'd say the box is too cheap given the range you provide, the post codes you're delivering to and the type of people who want this service.

 

As Barnsley said the website isn't great and is worth revisiting.

 

Have you thought about old school card drops through letter boxes? Fairly inexpensive and you can target the right type of customer.