Food Preparation Business Plan

The What’s For Dinner? management team will initially consist of the founders/owners themselves, Alan and Kim Kirby. We do not anticipate the need to hire anyone else on a full time basis during the first year, because all of the services that a normal small business needs will be outsourced. These services include the e-commerce infrastructure, accounting, marketing, and legal services. We do plan to employ one part-time employee from the beginning to help with cleaning and dishwashing.

Alan and Kim have 15 years of experience in the food service and entertainment industries, as a party planner and personal chef, respectively. Until the second year, Kim will continue to work part-time as a personal chef for several couples in Plano, doing the prep work and menu planning for What’s for Dinner? in the mornings. Alan will host the majority of the parties, after having prepared test batches of every menu item with Kim. The owners anticipate possibly hiring local high-school students as sous-chefs in years 2 and 3; Kim’s experience with local restaurants has shown that these students can often do quite well, paid only minimally in exchange for professional restaurant and food preparation training. Alan’s existing contacts with local social and community groups, and Kim’s ongoing relationships with food distributors, specialty grocers, and high-end clients will all help to generate high sales from early in the first year.

Throughout the first two years we will conduct an aggressive cost analysis as to what our capabilities are as owners and with what activities we need assistance.

7.1 Personnel Plan

The following table summarizes our personnel expenditures for the first three years, with compensation increasing from $34K the first year to about $60K in the third. We believe this plan is a fair compromise between fairness and expedience, and meets the commitment of our mission statement. The detailed monthly personnel plan for the first year is included in the appendices.