For three years, it has positioned itself as the healthiest kids lunch service around, focusing on plant-dominant menus made from scratch each morning and delivered to schools across the lower mainland.
But as a non-culinary person, I feel what the business needs next is culinary leadership. My background is in business and marketing and I believe I’ve built a solid brand and the foundation for sustainable business. But someone who truly understands the culinary side of the business can really help it scale and continue to build on its reputation.
BENEFITS
1. Strong reputation
It is the recipient of a Coast Capital Savings Venture Prize in 2020 and its founder won an SFU Alumni Founder Award the following year. It was also featured in Daily Hive and TheThunderbird.ca.
As part of this sale, you will receive the name, logo, URL, social accounts, recipes and other brand equity.
2. Market niche
It holds a strong position in two important niches. First, from a product standpoint, it distinguishes itself from others by being plant-dominated and made from scratch.
Our competitors focus mostly on offering typical kids meals (pizza, chicken strips, mac and cheese, etc.) for the lowest possible price and often serve frozen and/or heavily processed food.
In contrast, the menu is culturally diverse and based almost entirely on veggies, fruits, legumes, and grains made daily. You could even call our menu adventurous for kids, and so we’re always tweaking and trialing new dishes, as we take pride in developing a child’s palate over the course of a year.
Take our most famous dish, our ‘Macadoodle’. This is our take on mac and cheese, but completely dairy-free and with no chemicals or processed ingredients. Kids love it and yet are eating the healthiest mac and cheese they’ll ever eat!
Second, we have found that early learning centers—preschools, daycares, Montessoris, etc.—have been a great fit for us, as we can feed an entire classroom or two with one set meal (plus snacks) each day. We have worked with some elementary schools (and there is opportunity to grow in this space), but the added benefit of preschools and such is that they don’t close for summer holidays, don’t have as many professional days, and some don’t close for spring break.
Parents truly value our approach for their growing child, as evidenced by the video on this page.
Because of these two points of difference, we can charge more than other caterers and thus hold the position as the quality offering in the market. Our revenues and profits, therefore, are decent, despite being a smaller provider compared to more established competitors.
3. Staff and Facility
We have two reliable and caring cooks that arrive on time every morning and make delicious food. They have been a joy to work with and I hope the new owner would continue to work with them. We also have a dedicated delivery driver who is so dependable (critical in a business like this!) and understands the business.
We currently rent space in a commercial kitchen in central Vancouver, where we have complete use of the kitchen (no other tenants) during the morning hours (5 a.m.–11 11am). The rent is very favorable, and the landlord is great to work with. They recently completed a number of renovations and feature a good-sized kitchen with a commercial dishwasher, walk-in fridge, separate storage fridge, freezer, shelving, and everything you need.
4. Additional benefits
Competitive data:
I have spreadsheets and documents full of pricing details and menus from our competitors, as well as other staff and parent insights.
I also have spreadsheets with listings of early childhood centres in Vancouver, Richmond, Surrey and Burnaby for easy emailing or mail campaigns.
You will get a breakdown of schools that have worked with us in the past and other ‘warm leads’ so you can approach them with your ‘under new management’ pitch. I am also willing to assist in the transition to ensure the schools build a positive relationship with you and the handover is as seamless as possible.
WHO IS THIS SUITED FOR?
I see four potential buyers that this business could be suitable for:
1. Caterer: with the obvious fit, you can expand your business into a new market.
2. Existing cafe/restaurant owner: since the main operating hours for making kids lunches are 5 a.m.–10 a.m., a restaurant could use its non-opening hours to bring in additional revenue.
3. Starting a business: rather than going through the pain and risk of starting a food business from scratch, you can jump into this business that is already profitable, can pay you a good wage right away, has existing clientele and staff, and just brings your vision and talent.
4. Side hustlers: since the operating hours are in the morning, this could be a side business for someone who also works during the day or evening.
PRICING
Pricing represents approximately three months of revenue plus the value of the intangible assets (brand, reputation, competitive data, contact lists, etc.).
