Sir F's

Idea

Introduction

Sir F’s would offer a wide range of specialty baked goods (sweet pastries, gourmet savouries, deli-style sandwiches and celebration cakes), primarily of French origin, but also from various locations around the world including; Italy, Germany, India, USA, China and of course the traditional British favourites. All of our products would be lovingly hand-crafted using locally sourced organic ingredients while using traditional recipes of which some date back hundreds of years.

Intended impact

What’s the story?
Around the UK we have thousands of community-based shopping districts. All too often the community-based retailers found within these shopping districts are struggling to compete with out-of-town multi-platform retail chains. Added pressure from a lack of resources coupled with little support from fellow retailers and heavy competition results in closure for far too many of these outlets, in our opinion. To lose too many of these independent retailers for us would be like ripping the heart out of any community. This adds to our determination to see a sustainable cycle of co-operation with other local retailers.

So what does this mean?
Idealistic as it may sound, it is our belief that being part of a community means working alongside each other. In these tough economic times it is easy to constantly think about costs and seeking the best deals to sustain your business while losing focus on the community around you. Independent retailers should support one another to put the You and I back into community. We would hope that within our community, if we need vegetables to bake the pies then we would buy them from our local greengrocer down the road - that is what community is about.

If we and others weren't to buy from the local greengrocer, that business may not survive. This would reduce the potential customers within the area, therefore having an affect on our business. This IS NOT a sustainable cycle of co-operation but is a contributing factor to the death of independent businesses up and down the country. We are not purely driven by price or profits, just a simple ethical approach to sustainable community-based business.

Substantial accomplishments to date

We currently make celebration cakes for various private customers.

Monetisation strategy

We find that celebration cakes are difficult to get hold of at reasonable prices especially at short notice, this means we would be able to offer not only a reasonably priced cake of the highest quality due to our low overheads, but also on an ad-hoc and short notice basis. We would provide products of the highest quality to those with specific dietary requirements who would otherwise experience difficulty locating a wide variety of produce suitable to their individual needs.

We would provide a vast array of exciting new products that are based on international cuisine whilst also offering the highest quality, classic baked products from around the world to appeal to the diverse populous of Plymouth. We would provide an in-house lunchtime service to the neighbouring traders at competitive prices with personal discounts. Unique Selling Point: Aside from the fact that we offer traditional baked foodstuffs from around the world and our own unique recipes, all of our products are planned to be made with organic and ethically sourced ingredients. We have a specially developed line of gluten-free and dairy-free products, which represent approximately 25% of our available product lines on which we aim to expand upon.

Use of proceeds

We intend to use the money towards equipment, branding and advertising