Solving The Problem
My idea is to create a food service that, at the end of a restaurants closing hours collects their leftover food that would otherwise be thrown away and delivers it to food pantries. My main goal with this idea isn't for it to be incredibly profitable, but for it instead to make a difference on the community. By incentivizing restaurants to help the community, I can charge a small delivery fee to pay for gas and renting the vehicles. Since I will have no manufacturing costs, I need very little in order to be able to break even.
To get the business started, I would first begin targeting restaurants that embody corporate social responsibility in my area. Gainesville is a difficult area to find restaurants with this motto so I may also have to stop by restaurants in order to speak to owners/managers. Once I have approval, I would stop by the restaurants after hours to pick up their leftover food that would otherwise be thrown away. In the beginning, I would use my own car and provide my own service. My goal, however, would be able to rent a car service and employ people to pick up leftover food. As my service grows, I would want to expand to more restaurants and eventually create a database that links restaurants across the state to the nearest food pantry, so that way food pick-up and delivery is most efficient. If my service were to grow big enough, then I would begin asking the public for donations so I could employ more people and own more vehicles.
I believe this is a concept that would appeal to many restaurants because it acts as positive branding for them. A restaurant that is willing to give back to the community for a cause has some positive light shed on them, which looks better in the eyes of the people, which can then gain them more business.
Awesome idea the only problem I see with this is sustainability. The restaurants may be willing to do this as long as someone is asking them to every week or day, etc. but after a few months of not being asked and say the routine of paying your small fee begins to add up and they see how much they're paying just for a month of donating, they may decide it is easier just to trash the products. Many restaurants, especially downtown Gainesville's, are not franchised and are locally owned, therefore they are driven purely off of profit and not Corporate Social responsibility. (Nice incorporation of management vocabulary.) Therefore these companies for sure would not be willing to pay to have their leftover unused food donated rather than just trashing it. Seems like a nobel idea but seems there would be a lot of issues.
ReplyDeleteI really like this idea. It definitely seems like the type of program that could garner enough public support to obtain donations for funding. You might need to look into using refrigerated trucks which can keep the leftover food fresh as you pick it all up and then drop it off at 1 or multiple food pantries. One aspect that I'm unsure about, which Keegan also expressed skepticism about, is the likelihood that local businesses will be willing to pay for you to pick up the leftover food. All in all, this is a cause worth supporting and a worthy endeavor in my opinion.
ReplyDeleteThis is a great solution to your problem! It is creative and helps bypass the problem of people donating food individually. By having an organization go at the end of every day there is no way for people to simply forget or look passed food donation. I think that it is a good idea to keep costs low. This will help make it more realistic. This solution would be good publicity for many businesses. It is a good action to donate food and many people may be more inclined to eat at restaurants they know are donating food!
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