PRODUCT & SALES INFORMATION

All cultures from around the world use traditional foods and ingredients to maintain a healthy and balanced diet. Often though, as populations move and migrate, the foods they are familiar with become unavailable or too expensive to buy, so diets become mixed given new ideas and foods.

Ethnic groups often don’t realise that their new favourite foods are making their diets less healthy. This can lead to life threatening health problems, and could explain why minorities are prone to specific dietary related illnesses. For example 31% of Pakistani men have angina compared with 13% of men in the general population, and Bangladeshi women report high levels of stroke (12%) compared with 5% in the general population, The Health & Social Care Information Centre (2006).

To help tackle this trend, East Leeds Health For All (ELHFA) a charity based in Lincoln Green, Leeds, developed five ‘Multicultural Food Map Visual Teaching Aids’ (VTAs) which offer education on how to maintain a balanced diet.

As you may know from reading the rest of my blog, I am working alongside ELHFA in an effort to nationally distribute the VTAs through a joint venture, social enterprise business.

Our VTA products are bi-lingual and use cultural foods traditionally eaten by the 5 ethnic groups:

• Ethiopian
• Pakistani
• Sudanese
• Somalian
• Bangladeshi

The VTAs are A2 sized flip charts, which use a bespoke hardwearing folder design. They are easy to dismantle / store, presented in full colour and offer teacher notes on the reverse of each page. Take a look at some example pictures below:

VTA in flip chart position:


VTA folding design:


The teacher assistance on the reverse of each folding page offers guidance on how to deliver the material, and provide holistic diet information to the audience. There are plenty of interesting hints and tips which engage delegates and promote participation.

The VTAs are based around the Food Standards Agency ‘Eatwell Plate’ and cover:

• The 5 main food groups and suggested daily intake

• Types of vegetables & how to cook them

• Bread, rice, pasta types and how to cook them

• Types of meat, fish, beans & eggs and how to cook them

• Milk & dairy foods, intake information and children guidance

• Food types high in fat or sugar, intake guidelines

As these products are educational aids we are looking to sell them to local authorities, Primary Care Trusts (PCTs), universities, community centres and immigration centres.

If you know anyone who works in these types of organisations, please forward them a link to my blog!

The VTA’s are built to last and comprise a unique design which is easy to transport and store, meaning they can be used anywhere. Given this unique design they are competitively priced at £99, although for multiple purchases a 15% discount is offered.

If you would like to purchase a VTA, or are interested in finding out more (without obligation) then please email me. Click the envelope (top left), or the link below:

Email me

For general enquiries you could always post a comment at the bottom of the page.

I look forward to hearing from you,

Rowan

Post 4: My Company Proposition

The second exercise was to further define our business ideas and our company's ‘Proposition’.

As a start-up you need to clearly define your ‘offering’ (product), know your target audience and create Unique Selling Points (USPs). The main issues to review here are:

• What are you selling
• Who are you selling it to
• How are you positioning products
• What are your USPs

While defining the proposition for The Ethnic Diet Association results were as follows:



Steve explained that for many products breaking the proposition down into sub-propositions can make them easier to sell, so in the above example you notice different features of the VTAs have been highlighted as appealing to different areas of the target audience. Steve also suggested that understanding your company's proposition in relation to the competition is important in order to be create product differentiation, this is achieved by:

- Knowing who does the same thing

- Being aware of directly competing products

- Understanding what features competitors sell on, and therefore what we can
learn from them

- Analysing the market to spot potential niche opportunities

This understanding of your company's proposition and what you do better than competitors defines a company’s 'Core Competencies', Prahalad & Hamel (1990). If you are able to capitalise on these then 'Competitive Advantage', Porter (1980) can be achieved which in turn means a robust strategy for survival can be designed and implemented.


From defining The Ethnic Diet Associations proposition it has been identified that the product is unique from competitors given the bespoke folder/display stand design, bi-lingual format and use of traditional foods eaten by the ethnic target audiences. This exercise also shows that the target audience are in fact the organisations/individuals who educate ethnic populations as opposed to the actual end users.


It was explained that understanding your company's proposition is essential before embarking on the professional selling process, details of this can be found in my next post.

Speak soon, Rowan

Post 2: Introduction – My Big Idea

Welcome to the second posting all about my business idea.

Obviously an entrepreneur’s ideas are the key to their success, and finding my 'Big Idea' been a real journey. Over the years I have kept a spreadsheet of all my ideas and they vary massively in terms of Industry, feasibility, and merit!


When first started back at university I consulted the spreadsheet and was originally going to launch a business which supplies safety equipment to a niche market. I could see that this niche was growing and relatively ‘un-serviced’ by current suppliers. After doing all of the initial research, deciding on a company name and even finding suppliers I realised it wasn’t for me as a result of attending the first workshop hosted by Steve from VFM business advisers.


During the workshop I saw people around the table who were truly enthused about their business ideas and wanted them to work not just for money but for belief in what they were doing. I didn’t share this enthusiasm for my vertical market, and this point was hammered home when Steve mentioned that “you need to have passion and drive for what you are doing as this is what gets you through the stressful down days” – decision made, I’m not going to sell safety gear!


It was back to the drawing board and while friends and family made suggestions about what to do, a piece of work I was doing for University inspired me and gave me the Big Idea for my first company.


Basically, I have been working with a charity called East Leeds Health For All (ELHFA) to help develop a market entry strategy for 5 Visual Teaching Aid (VTA) products they have already designed and begun to manufacture. They are pretty unique as they help to promote a healthy eating message to 5 ethnic minorities in the UK using foods traditionally eaten by them and presented in a bi-lingual format.

Picture of my Visual Teaching Aid products:


Due to the recession ELHFA no longer have the time or capital to launch the products, thus I have put together a proposal for a joint venture whereby I manufacture and distribute their products, in return offering a license fee for the intellectual property they have created.


Although I am well aware that this venture won’t make me a millionaire, I do see it as offering some exceptional business experience and an ability to work in partnerships with a charity which is facing real difficulties despite doing so much excellent work for its local communities. This idea gets me excited and it’s something I have a real passion for - I now understand what Steve was talking about and what everyone else at the workshop was feeling about their business ideas.


After brainstorming and consulting the charity on a name for the company we realised that no-one else is operating in this niche, which means we saw the opportunity to build a brand around being a central authority point for ethnic dietary advice. We wanted the name to convey this in a professional manner, and The Ethnic Diet Association was born! We are...


A joint venture social enterprise business, which manufactures and distributes Visual Teaching Aid products focussed on improving dietary education for the growing number of ethnic communities in the UK.


So I hope this gives you all a clear idea of what I’m looking to do, and I look forward to sharing the latest progress with you in my next post.

Rowan