median
RealPoor Guru
Joined: 16 Oct 2002
Posts: 2183
Location: Hamillton, Canada
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 Posted: 09/05/03 - 11:21 Post subject: The Farmers Diner, helping out local farmers!
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This company is helping farmers in local areas by purchesing meat and vegitable products directly from thoes in the local area.
This not only helps the local community, but is much better for the consumer, giving them a higher-quality meal. A meal with food ripened and grown properly on a farm, not throwing food on trucks for thousands of miles.
heres the info
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Three and a half years ago as the result of a caffeine induced epiphany Tod Murphy saw the possibilities created for family farmers when the local economy of his great-grandmother's day was combined with the current world of vertical integration, economies of scale and Information Technologies. The hope for a restored rural economy rests in companies that buy; great-grandmother's economy, while reducing costs by the use of information technologies and savings from economies of scale. So Tod created such a company, The Farmers Diner™.
The Farmers Diner™ in Barre, Vermont is a demonstration that buying local foods and making them available to the entire community is possible and profitable. From the success of this diner on Main Street, The Farmers Diner™ is preparing to build more diners within Vermont to continue the good work of reviving rural life. Currently 64% of all our food dollars are spent with farmers and small scale food producers who live and work within 70 miles of the diner. In our first three months we have spent $40,000 with these food making neighbors. For the local rural economy that translates into an infusion of $200,000 - $280,000.
Long term our goal is to roll out a national network of Farmers Diner™ restaurants that continue to serve typical diner food sourced from local farmers and producers. We expect to become a leader in family/casual dining because local fresh food tastes superior, customers prefer to support their neighbors and communities and The Farmers Diner provides great service and reasonable prices.
Buying and selling so much local food creates significant social returns. Every $1,000,000 in sales at a diner translates into 350 acres of farmland in production, 15 farmers with gross sales of $50,000, 13 new on farm jobs, and $1,200,000 in land conservation costs saved. Because of local production and shortened delivery routes each million in sales saves at least 10 tons of CO2 emissions annually.
Our plan for creating more Farmers Diner™ restaurants is pretty simple. We will enter new markets by establishing a local operating entity under The Farmers Diner™ name and attracting a local investor group composed of farmers, business leaders and others who care about viable communities. The model allows the parent company to leverage its core business processes, technology and management expertise across multiple locations with significant economy of scale. This allows The Farmers Diner™ to simultaneously increase benefits to employees, continue to pay profitable prices to local farmers and still pay a good return to our investors both local and large.
Despite talk of a slowing economy the overall US market for family/casual dining is now "hot"--the fastest-growing segment of the restaurant industry, the top 30 chains accounting for $26.6 billion in sales in 2000 and growing at 12% a year. The number of family/casual dining restaurants--loosely defined as chains where patrons can dine for about $10-15-- rose 8% last year, double the growth of fast food outlets.
We will target our first-phase rollout to regional "sweet spots": locations that have high traffic, nearby farms, and favorable demographics. We believe there are a minimum of 400 unique locations within the United States which meet this profile and that will support diner operations.
Quite simply The Farmers Diner™ combines time-tested restaurant-chain basics with socially-responsible economics and operations. The key sources of revenue will be meal sales. The key expenses are food costs (35%), labor (32%) facilities (10%) and training (5%) and G&A (3%). We have projected our food costs at 20% above industry average. The company projects bottom line profitability of about 10%.
Key Principals
CEO/PRESIDENT-Tod Murphy
Co-Founder/Director of Operations The Coffee Station. Grew business within three years to $15,000,000 in annual sales with 26 units in Charlotte, NC, Atlanta, Los Angeles and New York City.Experience in early growth period of Starbucks in Seattle, WA.Longtime entrepreneur: opened first retail business at age thirteen; started working in food service at sixteen.
OPERATIONS-Dan Pupke
Grew up in a Long Island, NY restaurant family worked all positions from bussing to managementGeneral Manager - Noah's Bagels Los Angeles. "Turnaround Manager" increased sales at units by 30% Manager - The Old Heidelburg Restaurant grossing $1.5 million in annual sales.
PRODUCTION/MANUFACTURING - Larry Tempesta
Standard Products Company, Program Manager responsible for all aspects of General Motors production.Accountable for four production lines and over 100 union employees.Trainer for Quality Control Inspectors.
Social and Environmental Impact -
§ A regional pod of five diners and a commissary creates an annual market of $4,000,000 for small scale farmers.
§ The minimum standards of production exclude the use of antibiotics, and hormones and require that all livestock have access to the outdoors and pasture as a principal part of their feed ration. This eliminates improper waste management and focuses farmers on husbandry and not industrial management.
§ Vegetables when not available from organic sources will be raised using minimum chemical applications. Intensive Pest Management and other recognized systems of low input chemical farming are the minimum criteria for vegetable producers. This eliminates much of the chemical run off that pollutes water sources.
§ Using the Department of Commerce multiplier for dollars spent in local communities it is estimated that the $4,000,000 spent by each pod in local agrarian communities will translate into an economic force of approximately $20,000,000 annual. This will encourage other farm and distribution related services to be created.
§ Each pod of five diners and a commissary will help maintain and create new farms. With each farm supplying $20,000 - $50,000 worth of produce to The Farmers Diner this translates into 80-200 local farms secure in their economic viability.
§ Using the commissary for processing local produce will allow farmers to diversify their operations and receive better compensation without the time requirement of coordinating processing and distribution. This will result in farms that move towards poly-culture and away from sole dependence upon commodity monoculture.
Projected Gross Revenue Startup to Five Years
Year 1 Year 2 Year 3 Year 4 Year 5
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Total Units 2 4 8 14 22
Net Sales 4,600,000 9,200,000 18,400,000 32,200,000 50,600,000
Gross Margin 2,760,000 5,520,000 11,040,000 19,320,000 30,360,000
Expenses 2,898,000 5,796,000 10,192,000 17,311,000 26,818,000
Net Income (138,000) (276,000) 848,000 2,009,000 3,542,000
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peace.
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