business

📝 Business Plan

The purpose of this is to display a cohesive idea of what TUCKEDito is after one year in business, and what it will become over the next five years. This is a long form business plan, it is meant to be detailed. It combines almost all major areas of our business for current and future business.

Tuckedito

26 Aug 2022 • 15 min read

By: Mitch Wooderson

Objective

***Note: the one major area that is not included in full is day to day operations. We plan to have SOPs written up for this sometime this winter.

We are using the blog format so we can link to different posts that we've already written that can provide more detail on a topic, without taking up as much space.

💬 Sections in this Post

Executive Summary
Business Description
Target Market Analysis
Competitor Analysis
Marketing/Sales
Growth Strategy
Financial Projections

Executive Summary

Overview

We are a mobile food company looking to expand our business to meet current demand. TUCKEDito is built on great Mexican food and great vibes. We make it a pleasure for our customers to order from us by delivering delicious food with a positive attitude and a smile.

We have had to turn down many opportunities because we only have one mobile set up (data supporting this in Target Market Analysis section). We want to capture some of this business to increase our revenues. To do this we are purchasing a food cart.

We want a food cart instead of a truck for two main reasons, greater reliability and less overhead expense. These two benefits greatly lessen our risk. With less debt and more projected up-time, servicing the debt we take on by acquiring the cart should not be a problem. We don't need the capacity of a truck because we have tuned our operation to be able to run out of something smaller. This model will provide easier mobile expansion in the future. We are focused on efficient processes that anyone can learn.

Once we expand our mobile business, we will look to move into a brick and mortar location.

The brick and mortar location will provide the TUCKEDito brand with increased visibility and legitimacy. It will also give us a home base to direct people.

We will operate the brick and mortar location, as well as our 2 mobile operations, all out of one kitchen. This will provide us 3 streams of income to support rent costs, as well as cost benefits that come with economies of scale. With these operations working together we will increase our market share in the growing fast casual Mexican food market.

Food

We provide a unique spin on traditional dishes using basic ingredients. We have a keen eye for what the consumer will want to come back and eat time and time again.

Tuckeditos, our own take on a traditional taquito, are our main product. We have developed 10 flavors since starting and offer a choice of 6 flavors when we’re serving. We always have 4 house-made side sauces available. On occasion we serve tacos and tostadas.

Once we have more capacity we plan to consistently offer tacos and tostadas along with rice bowls (think Chipotle but different options). Another reason we want a food cart is that it will provide us with this capacity.

We want customers to know we are more than just taquitos. We are also a place to come grab tacos or rice bowls. A food cart will provide us with this ability to offer a larger variety every time we serve.

Our Brand

Good Vibes. We strive to be somewhere people want to come back to. We make sure to always be pleasant and provide quality food. Smiling while serving is a key. We want people to be happy and feel welcomed. We use our food and attitude along with our bright colors and patterned bow-tie to display that. One goal in starting this business in our hometown was to bring our community closer together and making everyone feel welcome and being approachable is how we have done that.

Us

We have been close our whole lives and have wanted to run a business together since graduating college. In the time between we both worked corporate jobs for 5 and 6 years, respectively.

We find that we are different from most people in the industry because we come from the business side, while the majority come from a background in food. While we are always focused on the quality of the food we view everything through a lens of financial impact, efficiency, and ability to scale.

Through many hours of reading, research, and experience we have solid foundational knowledge of how the business world works. We understand the importance of business aspects like marketing, distribution, cash flow, and margins.

Brendan

Brendan graduated from Penn State in 2016 with a degree in industrial engineering.

Brendan’s work experience was in logistics, engineering, and management for BP Group. He worked in a manufacturing environment for the final 3 years at a Castrol Plant in Baltimore, MD. He was responsible for a team of 12 shop floor employees in terms of their scheduling, training, discipline, and yearly reviews. As we begin to expand and hire employees having learned and practiced management techniques will be beneficial to the company.

James

James graduated from La Salle University in 2015 with a degree in finance.

James’ work experience was in supply chain and business analytics with Five Below and Petco, while being a hobby cook. This work had him working in Microsoft Excel and merchant relations. The excel work revolved around forecasting, efficiency, and data organization. Learning how to create reports like this has helped to do the same for our business. The reports give us a more full and organized overview of our business as well as improve efficiency.

James has generated raw material forecasting and financial forecasting files that increase our cost efficiency in purchasing. They also give us a macro view of the business and future cash flows which allow us to make decisions on capital investments in assets. The trailer we are buying is an example of this.

Core Values

We strive to make an impact with our ideas and compliment great food with good vibes.

Integrity > Profit
Highlight our customers
Dependable
Empower Individuals (Creativity)
Pleasant, positive, and polite

Business Description

Legal Structure

TUCKEDito is an LLC. Brendan Pinder and James Pinder are 50/50 owners. We are also the only two employees.

Organizational Structure

2023-2025: Multiple Mobile Operations

As a growing small business our organizational chart will be adjusted over the next few years. With that being said, the top positions of CEO and VP's will be kept as is throughout that time. The first employees will be needed in 2023 mainly for food prep and on-site service. As we add a second mobile setup, 3 workers will be required to have both in operation simultaneously.

Operations

Purchasing

We purchase our ingredients on a weekly basis and our supplies (non-perishables such as packaging) on a monthly basis. We have an excel file that’s updated each week with what we need to purchase this week. It takes into consideration the current inventory and the menu for the week to do this.

We purchase meat in bulk from BJs and produce from Produce Junction. Our supplies mainly come from the Restaurant Store. We pick everything up ourselves because we do not currently order enough to qualify for deliveries.

As mentioned earlier, with the addition of a food cart we hope that we can reduce our COGs as a percentage of income as a result of larger order quantities. We would plan on ordering everything that we do now, but in case quantities. This would result in a reduction in our cost per unit. There would also be a possibility of getting deliveries which would save time.

Prep

The same day we do our purchasing we do our prepping. We do this the day before cooking.

This prep includes preparing fruits and vegetables, making sauces, and preparing meat. We cut and marinate the meat so it has time to sit overnight and absorb the marinades to increase flavor.

We usually spend 2-5 hours in the kitchen on this day.

Cooking

One day each week we focus on cooking and preparing the bulk of our food. This means cooking the meats and making the mixtures for our taquitos.

We are always looking into ways to increase efficiency without sacrificing quality whether that is through using new methods or better equipment and technology.

We usually spend about 6-8 hours in the kitchen on this day.

Event Days

We take time to prep prior to each event. The amount of prep varies depending on the menu and what we completed the day before. Usually we get in the kitchen 1-2 hours before we have to leave to be at an event.

Then, off to the event.

Our events primarily take place outside, which is beneficial as it offsets some of the COVID risk. Normal events for us are community events, festivals, breweries, private events (parties, work lunches, apartment complexes etc.) The list of possible events is ever-growing.

We almost always have guaranteed customers, this makes it easy to stay cash flow positive. We have developed an eye for events that will be beneficial to our business. We require minimums when booking private events.

One risk we can foresee would be getting squeezed out of the more profitable events by bigger brands. We think a food cart could help validate our brand as well as increase its reach, helping to diminish this risk.

Business Activities

These activities are normally completed early in the week, when we’re not in the kitchen, or in the morning on event days, as our events tend to be later in the day.

Inventory

We take physical inventory once a week and manually update our excel file. This way our purchasing list is correct when the file updates. The file weighs what’s needed for the week’s menu against the current inventory to get what we need to purchase for the week.

Menu Creation

We have an excel file linked to our inventory where we write recipes. The recipes include quantities of items listed in our master inventory file. Then, we decide on our weekly menu. Once we input how many of each menu item we need for the week, what we need in total for the week is automatically updated and compared against our current inventory to get our purchase list.

Bookkeeping

We use Xero for bookkeeping. We go in daily and reconcile transactions. Once a week we look at financial reports to see where we stand.

Scheduling

We keep a Google Sheet with our schedule. We answer emails for event requests as they come in. If they pass our criteria check and $ minimum we will try to book them and then add them to the Google Sheet.

Reporting

Every Monday we review and update our four main reports. These reports are Recipe/Inventory File, Financial Projections, Projected Menu, and Event/Sales History.

We use reports from Square and Xero to update these.

Marketing Content

Every week we spend a few hours on Marketing. This includes updating our content schedule report, creating videos, photo editing, website updating, and brainstorming.

Target Market Analysis

Industry

We are currently in the mobile food service business and the goal is to extend into the fast casual food service and pick-up catering business as we grow into a storefront over the next few years. We would like our brick and mortar to be in the Montgomery or Bucks county area. We have started targeting the customers in this area using the mobile operation for community events, breweries, and festivals in these areas. We are beginning to develop brand recognition locally and are gaining traction with returning customers. We are continuously asked the question, "Where is your storefront?" or "Do you have a brick and mortar?".

Demand

We have seen overwhelming demand for food trucks at events since we started this business last September. The table below shows the amount of inquiries we have received just through Facebook and our website since we added an inquiry request form to our website in late November 2021 (Data as of 7/25/22).

Since March of this year, we have received about 1 inquiry per day from website submissions and facebook. This does not include phone calls or cold emails which would add about .5 per day. This equates to about 45 inquiries per month of which 80% we have to deny due to our availability. Clearly, this shows demand for two mobile setups, possibly year round, but definitely during the busy season Spring-Fall.

Anecdotally, through speaking with event planners, we have noticed a trend of long-running events switching to food trucks instead of providing it in-house. This is the network effect of the growing food truck scene, there are now enough mobile food businesses to make this feasible, but at the same time it increases the demand at an even faster rate than the supply.

Risks

Other already established fast casual Mexican brick and mortar restaurants could try to move into the mobile food business. For instance, if Chipotle decided to start a food truck segment, they could quickly swallow up a lot of the excess demand for food truck events.
Cash and Greater Economic Factors - We are positioned conservatively with our cash on hand and debt to equity ratio; however, there is always a chance that a wider economic collapse could cause a drastic decrease in demand or change the market structure completely.

Company Advantage

Our advantage is that we are starting lean and small. We are proving the demand for our products is there before expanding. We also have a different background from the majority of the food truck owners we have met as mentioned earlier. We are passionate about the food we make, but we are more business-oriented in terms of educational and work background.

This gives us an edge because we are running our business based on numbers and financials rather than just the desire to live off of a cooking passion or a specialty dish that friends have liked. We are starting the business in the community that we grew up in and still have many connections with today which has helped to generate buzz.

The market for Mexican food is growing and the use of fresh ingredients in all of our recipes allows us to capture the increasing consumer base looking for healthy food options (Citation). We've seen the shift continuing from traditional unhealthy fast food like Burger King and Wendys to the more health conscious Chipotle and Sweetgreen.

The bright blue and orange bowtie is a recognizable brand and we are using different marketing channels to spread it (i.e. merch, social media, even packaging).

Competitor Analysis

This section is to highlight the other businesses that we are currently in competition with and those who we’ll continue to jostle with for market share as we look to expand to a brick-and-mortar.

All Local Food Trucks

When we are at a public event, the majority of times there will be at least one other food truck there. They are direct competition for us as we are both aiming to draw from the same customer pool. This makes any local food truck our direct competition. Menu, marketing, customer service and efficiency all play into who will do the most business on that day. We are also in competition with these same trucks for private catering. If an event coordinator is looking for food trucks, our name will come up side-by-side with the others that service our region.

Other Competition

El Limon Taqueria

A locally franchised fast-casual restaurant that has storefronts in all of the nearby growing towns (as of this writing they have 14 locations all in Bucks, Montgomery, and Delaware counties). They were established in 2010 and have been steadily expanding since then. They do not offer mobile services like a food truck but they do have bulk catering trays available for pickup or delivery. Cheap but authentic Mexican eats and they have a strong brand among the majority of demographics in our area.

Chipotle (Qdoba, California Tortilla, etc.)

As mentioned earlier, chipotle is a behemoth in the fast-casual food scene and they definitely own the Mexican section. Their brand is very strong and they have a certain percentage of loyalists that may never go anywhere else. Their food is high quality and the price-point is very reasonable because of their economies of scale. However, we have noticed ourselves and through speaking with many other customers, that customer service and wait times have become an issue for them. It seems like they have lost focus on the little things as their brand can make up for it. It does give an opportunity for a small business such as ours to provide similar high-quality food at a reasonable price but with better service and a local background.

Humpty's Dumplings

(Adjacent, similar trajectory, and locally based) - Humpty's started as a mobile-only business in the mid 2010's and made their name at local food truck events as well as music festivals across the country. They have one brick-and-mortar location but several mobile set-ups that include full food trucks and trailers/carts.

Marketing/Sales

Instagram

This is our main form of marketing. Every update we have will appear on our Instagram. We have seen this is where the majority of customers go to validate a food establishment. They want to see what the food looks like and it’s an easy way to find the schedule.

Consistency is key for instagram posting. At the start of every weekend we post our schedule and at the end we post a recap that includes pictures of customers with our bow tie. We believe this helps establish a personal connection and brand recognition. This promotes the good vibes that we preach.

We use instagram reels heavily. We do this to display our food using quick clips. We also create fun, slightly corny, videos of ourselves to give customers something to laugh at so that we create that personal connection.

Instagram is the main media source used by our target market so it makes sense to include all updates on it.

Facebook
Our Facebook page is cross posts from all of our instagram posts. We use Facebook to reach the older demographic who want to find us.

Email

Newsletter

We’ve sent out a monthly newsletter since we started our business. This newsletter goes out on the 1st of each month via email and is also posted on our website, blog, and social channels.
The newsletter is meant to be a fun update of our business. It is meant to give our customers a more personal insight so they feel involved. In the newsletter we provide things to look for in the upcoming month as well as a recap of the previous month. We hope that this can become a form of user-generated content for us as we grow.

Email Blasts

Occasionally we send updates using email blasts. When we have something important we want to get out we will use this. Square gathers customer emails and provides us with a long list of email addresses. Many of these customers might not see us on social media, so the email blast provides another way to remind them of us.

Brand

Our brand is key. We always make sure to be pleasant, positive, and polite when serving. We want to provide a memorable experience. When you get great and unique food and service with positive energy you don’t forget it.

We realize that we need to tether that intangible experience to something physical, so we plaster our bright bow tie logo everywhere. We want to make our brand stick in customers' minds. The bow tie and bright colors are unmistakable.

Word of Mouth

Creating that strong brand works its way into word of mouth marketing. Expanding our visibility by getting around to a variety of events extends this word of mouth advertising. A wider customer base means more mouths spreading the word.

Our youthful energy and the expanding popularity of Mexican food has resulted in people recommending us to others they know that are looking for mobile food service. We have a “how did you hear about us” section in our website inquiry form that captures this.

Online search

The expanding popularity of Mexican food and food trucks is key to the online search. We have all 5 star reviews on Google, Facebook, and Yelp.

We are on the top of the Yelp page when searching for the best food trucks Lansdale. When people look for the best Mexican Food we are the first result on Google. This is evidenced in the images below.