20a

Dominant expert: So being that my business idea is to have organic foods I did some research in my town about organic foods, etc. well there is a small company “FL health foods” (just one older lady named Myra) where she produces oils, foods, scents, etc. all out of fruits that she has grown, or purchased from the local farmers market, then sells these products. I mainly just asked her about her foods and how much profit she made on the small amounts of things that she does. In a monthly average, she said she may make 300-400 dollars because she doesn’t do it all the time, and doesn’t have a large customer base, but she thinks with advertising and a lot of drive and help she could probably profit $2000 a month during the fall and summer when fruits are the easiest to come by. She didn’t expect anything in return and asked that if I should like to learn even more that I am welcome to stop by her house and she would love to tell and show me more about what she does. I think she could help me by telling me more about how to preserve and dry fruits that would go into the cereal to keep them fresh tasting without spoiling.

Market Expert: For the market expert, I picked a friend of mine who works at Publix and is a cashier, and also does stock when they need him on nights. His name is DJ and has worked at Publix for 4 years since he was 16. Over the past 4 years he said that he has saw how much the social buying of people has changed. They have transitioned from buying and eating whatever they wanted to buying lots of healthier choices. I have known him since we were born as him and my father are lifelong friends. I contacted him by calling him and asking him a few things about the market change of healthy vs. un healthy goods over the past 4 years. He doesn’t expect any favor in return because we are such close friends. I think he could potentially help this opportunity by seeing exactly how many boxes of my cereal are sold vs. other alternatives.

Supplier: I talked to my grandpa about this assignment and he said that he may know someone that is a supplier to a very similar market that I could talk to in person. Me and my grandfather drive to a small farmhouse about 30 minutes outside of town down a dirt road that was about 3 miles long. In the back stood 30+ pecan trees that were at least 100 feet tall. At the house, we found an older man named John Pole, who grows, picks, and shells pecan along with 5 other workers and they supply various organizations including Edwards frozen pies at seasonal times of the year. I figure this is relates since my cereal will have organic fruit implemented. I asked him how the organization worked with him, which he couldn’t disclose much because of the Edwards company policy and supplier competition, but another bakery out of Gainesville also buys his pecans. He said that since they are a company and buy so many at the time that he gives a 20% discount vs. if I was to go to his farm and purchase per pound. He didn’t expect anything in return for telling me about how he went about his business with organizations that had an interest in his pecans. I think if the cereal got popular and people wanted another source of proteins like nuts added to the cereal Mr. John could potentially supply general mills with the Pecans.

Reflect: This experience opened me up to really how many people are transitioning to a healthier lifestyle in the expert section really taught me that I am not the only person that would like to help make products that are healthy and tasteful. I think this will shape my networking in the future because it really took a lot of time to find the business in market expert that I could truly relate too. I realized the best form of finding something is actually just asking other people, like my grandfather really helped me out by pointing me of the direction of the Pecan farmer. I feel like this time around was hard to find the sources that I felt that were god for the slots we had to fill,  but I think in the end it turned out well.