Introduction and Problem Statement
In the year 2007, Hope Blooms was launched by Jessie Jollymore with the aim of providing people with healthy food and empowering the local youth. In May 2014, Hope Blooms became a registered charity that aims to grow their business and protect the youth through their charitable programs. The two fundamental problems that Hope Blooms faces are; firstly, making their retail operations stable employment for their youth members and, secondly, increasing the revenues of the charity and increase its revenues.
Analysis
Hope Blooms have achieved their founding objectives of helping people eat healthy food and helping the local youth through involvement and scholarships. According to their financial reports of 2014-15, Hope Blooms were able to contribute $30,000 to youth worker’s scholarships and the year-end profit was $99,800. Hope Blooms have been able to connect with people as they have been selling products at premium price, but their high quality product has been a hit among the local buyers. In addition, there was a $40,000 donation from the CBS show Dragon Den that helped Hope Blooms gain nationwide coverage and became ‘only in Canada’ top story. Since their conception, utilizing local youth and empowering them has developed a business dependent on youth participation. At present, 14 youth leaders are part of Hope Blooms and 38 Hope Blooms members are handling garden operations and greenhouse.
Support from the community was proven in the winter of 2015, when their cold frame greenhouse was damaged severely. Hope Blooms received support from the local community in the form of 1500 ft2 greenhouse that can work all year and help the charity increase their annual produce and revenue. The design of the new project was another success for Hope Blooms as one of their youth members designed the new greenhouse that would help the charity generate around 900 kilos of vegetables and herbs for funding their education programs and creating their retail products. There is huge demand for the salad dressing bottles as 10,000 were sold out in 2015. With the new greenhouse in full production, the number is expected to increase to 20,000 bottles. With their growth Hope Blooms faces new challenges such as partnership with Atlantic Superstores, expanding product offerings and marketing for increasing awareness through utilization of limited resources.
Hope Blooms has to several alternatives to the full operation of the new greenhouse and expected increase in demand. One of the first alternatives that Hope Blooms needs to choose from is their partnership with Atlantic Superstores or partnering with other stores too. Another alternative that they need to consider is expanding their product offerings from the current collection of salad dressings and adding other products such as juice to their collection. Finally, Hope Blooms needs to decide the marketing strategy for increasing awareness of their products.
Recommendation
Hope Blooms have already signed a deal with Atlantic Superstores and they have managed to sell-out all their salad dressing bottles in 2015. The best solution is not tying up with other stores, rather than asking Atlantic Superstores to give access to more stores based on present performance. Adding product offerings is the most suitable option for expanding operations for Hope Blooms, especially adding healthy vegetable juices. At present, all products were sold out and there is a proven demand for Hope Blooms products with success of vegetable juice mini-venture. Since, budget is significantly low for advertising the best marketing strategy is using social media geo-strategically and depending on word of mouth strategy for now.
