Urban Roots LLC 1 Page Business Plan

Vertical Farm Business Plan

Urban Roots LLC 1 Page Business Plan

Overview

Urban Roots LLC has a clear business objective to develop, produce, promote and distribute Vertical Farm products and services. These products and services have been developed over one year with a core focus on addressing the key customer problem and associated opportunities.

The Business Objectives

As a key component of our growth strategy we consider it critical to identify and outline our business objectives, and align these objectives with clear and measurable development milestones. Our key long term business objective is to acquire new customers. Customer acquisition is considered to be the critical activity and we are seeking to grow the number of customers. We understand that customer growth could be at the expense of profitability, and that there is a cost associated with customer acquisition. Our long term objective is to build a clear customer acquisition process.

The Customer

Urban Roots LLC has been created with a clear focus on the needs of our customers. Through a structured customer discovery process, we have validated the key customer problem as a lack of varied, fresh agricultural products harvested locally 365 days per year at competitive prices. This is a critical issue for our selected target market of to local retail outlets, research universities, and the food insecure.

The Value Proposition

Urban Roots LLC is uniquely positioned to deliver value to local retail outlets, governments, universities, and the food insecure. "Urban Roots LLC will provide affordable, fresh locally grown agricultural products 365 days a year." In order to deliver on this value proposition, we have developed a proprietary system using intelligent lighting within a controlled environment to accelerate harvests of any agricultural product. This capability has taken considerable time and resources to develop and forms the cornerstone of our competitive advantage.

Competitors

We have a number of competitors within the urban farm space locally and nationally. We consider our key local competitors to be: Sheaux Fresh Sustainable Foods (New Orleans), Our Garden (New Orleans), Backyard Gardener's Network (New Orleans), SankofaNOLA (New Orleans), Recirculating Farms (New Orleans).

Nationally, our competitors are Bright Farms (New York City), Gotham Greens (New York City), The Plant (Chicago), FarmedHere LLC (Chicago), Green Spirit Farms (Buffalo, MI) and Arcadia Food (Alexandria, VA).. Our understanding of these competitors has been used to refine our strategy and value proposition. We believe that we can compete effectively with We have a number of competitors within the urban farm space locally and nationally.

We consider our key local competitors to be: Sheaux Fresh Sustainable Foods (New Orleans), Our Garden (New Orleans), Backyard Gardener's Network (New Orleans), SankofaNOLA (New Orleans), Recirculating Farms (New Orleans).

Nationally, our competitors are Bright Farms (New York City), Gotham Greens (New York City), The Plant (Chicago), FarmedHere LLC (Chicago), Green Spirit Farms (Buffalo, MI) and Arcadia Food (Alexandria, VA).

We believe that we can compete effectively with these establishments because of our commitment to technologies that optimize production cycles to meet demand for our staple crops such as salad greens, herbs, and tomatoes, and also our on-demand orders of smaller crops from local universities, restaurants and farmer's markets.

Our non-profit programs will focus upon eliminating food insecurity and providing a living wage for the unemployed and underemployed.

Key Strategies

Over the next six months our focus will be to acquire start up capital from crowdfunding websites Barnraiser, Kickstarter and several United States Department of Agriculture programs:
• Beginning Farmer and Rancher Development Program (BFRIDA)
• Value Added Producer Grant (VAPG)
• Rural Energy for America Program (REAP) for assistance with renewable energy
Urban Farms also seeks to raise capital through Small Business Administration grant programs for beginning, disadvantaged, minority, green energy, SBA 8(a) and state grants.
We will then secure real estate, install equipment, establish production contracts with local businesses, begin operations and then harvest our first crops within thirty days of operation. . This task will be undertaken in the context of our broader strategy to In the mid-term, we seek to form a non-profit to alleviate food insecurity in the Greater New Orleans area. This task will be undertaken in the context of our broader strategy to participate in the US Department of Agriculture's Food Insecurity Nutrition Incentive (FINI) program, a program which will help the nearly 50 million Americans enrolled in the Supplemental Nutrition Assistance Program (SNAP, formerly known as food stamps) to purchase healthy, locally grown fruits and vegetables.
. These strategies are a tactical implementation of our overall business goal as outlined above.

Milestones

Measurement of the successful implementation of our strategies will be governed by measurable development milestones. The milestones that will be achieved over the next 2 years are: Obtain capitalization through crowdfunding, federal and state grant programs, venture capital Acquire new customers with area grocery store managers, executive chefs, farmer's market owners, public and private school superintendents, rectors, restaurant general managers, hospital administrators, clergy, and universities Rent a windowless warehouse in the Greater New Orleans area with minimum dimensions of 14,000 square feet, 14' to beam indoor headroom, power wash and install equipment

About this document
Vertical Farm Business Plan
This document was created by Michael of Urban Roots LLC using the 5 minute Business Plan App. This technology and approach is powered by HyperQuestions.

Plan your next project at http://www.chartgantt.com for the best excel gantt charts.