Idea Napkin No.2

1.  Who am I?  I am Dakotah Diaz.  I am pretty good at making friends and I enjoy talking to people and making connections.  I am a hard worker, and I'm also diligent with the tasks that I am responsible for.  Not only do I enjoy a challenge, I welcome it.  I believe that the best way to improve myself is through pushing myself in everything that I do.  I have several aspirations, the biggest one being to run the 800 and 400 meter race in the Olympics.  My other big aspiration is to start my own business--either the one I have been doing for these past assignments or an athletic training business.  If I were to start my own business, of course it is going to play a major role in my daily life.  I am going to need to make sure that everything is running smoothly, and that both my customers and employees are satisfied.

2.  Since I have been using Comfort Food Inc. as my business idea for the past assignments, I will use it again for this assignment as well.  Comfort Food Inc. serves food made only with locally grown produce, dairy, and meat.  The fast food industry has been slowly but surely declining in recent years, mainly due to the fact that many people (especially young adults) are becoming more conscious of what they are putting into their bodies.  But do not get confused, Comfort Food Inc. is not a fast food restaurant.  We take the time to prepare your dish fresh in a timely manner.  Locally grown food is fresher, and in turn healthier, and not to mention tastier too.  This is especially true with produce, which begin to lose their nutrients after the first 24 hours of being harvested. The overall goal of Comfort Food Inc.  is to bring the food from the farm to the plate as quickly as possible to ensure that we provide the healthiest and tastiest food to our customers.

 3.  Even though healthy food can be targeted towards any demographic, I would try to aim more towards college students, simply because, as I stated before, it is young adults who are leading the recent "eating healthy" trend.


4. People desire to eat at a place where they can feel calm and comfortable knowing that what they are eating is giving them good nutrients and helping them lead the healthy lifestyle that they want.  People buy fast food because it is convenient, and for college kids, convenience is everything.  They don't have time to prepare a healthy home-cooked meal.  But Comfort Food Inc. asks "why not have both?"

 5.  The main aspect that sets Comfort Food Inc. apart from other restaurants is the supply chain.  We will get all of our ingredients from either local farms, or even have them grown on sight in compact greenhouses.  I know the idea of a greenhouse on sight sounds ridiculous, but it is actually completely feasible (I did a project on this).  This restaurant would provide the freshest and healthiest ingredients out of any other restaurant, since others receive their ingredients from giant farms located several hundred miles away from their location.  The ingredients that most restaurants use are on average, about two to three weeks old.  By that time, the produce has lost practically all of its nutrients and flavor, and being kept in a freezer the entire time doesn't help at all. 

Feedback memo: Surprisingly enough, the comments I received on this video were actually helpful.  Each comment gave a good point for me to follow and implement.  The first comment mentioned that I should try to avoid comparing Comfort Food Inc. to fast food restaurants, since I am trying to maintain a healthy image for the restaurant.  The second comment asked if this restaurant would only be based in Florida because of the minor seasonal changes and vast variety of produce that could be grown.  This is a good point that I have been trying to work a solution for.  I want to be able to expand this company to other states and possibly go international, but there are some locations where it will be difficult to maintain our locally grown promise.  On the other hand, by having restaurants in different locations, each one can have a sort of unique menu with food options being unique to each locale, which would add to the uniqueness of the restaurant.  Another comment mentioned that having an on-site greenhouse doesn't sound feasible.  Keep in mind that the greenhouse will not be our primary source of produce, so it does not need to be large (there are 12x16ft options that are affordable and that would be sufficient).  These greenhouses can also be placed on top of buildings too, so if there is no room on our property, we can grow food on the roof, which is friggin' AWESOME!