Vending Machine

od goes to waste every year in the US? That is roughly 165 billion dollars worth of food that goes down the toilet every single year. (http://news.blogs.cnn.com/2012/08/22/40-of-u-s-food-wasted-report-says)To make matters worse, the primary reason Americans throw away their food is because of a misunderstanding of labels. According to a research done by the Natural Resource Defense Council and Harvard University, the confusion over expiration dates contribute to 90% of the food that is thrown away (http://www.nrdc.org/food/expiration-dates.asp). In fact, the date labels such as

“best buy”, “sell by” and “use by” is to inform customer when the food will be at its peak quality instead of a customer safety issue. On the other hand, in 2014, there are 50-million Americans living below the poverty line. (http://www.newsmax.com/Newsfront/poverty- line-grows-under/2014/01/08/id/545892/) What if we could allocate these wasted food and resources to feed the Americans who are poor? Alas we can! With my restaurant, Bread&Love, that will cater to these poor people by providing a menu at unmatchable prices.

II. Industry, customer and competitor analysis

A recent report from the U.S. Census Bureau says that more Americans Are living in poverty than at anytime in the last 50 years. (http://www.census.gov/hhes/www/poverty/data/incpovhlth/2012/figure4.pdf) The growing poverty rate could be the main reason why food insecurity is common in Ohio. According to the U.S Department of Agriculture, 1 out of 6 Ohio household faced food insecurity. (http://www.dispatch.com/content/stories/local/2013/09/06/ohio-10th-worst-state-for-food-insecurity.html) Food insecurity is when the people cannot get adequate amount of food because of lack of money during any time of the year. Therefore, the evidence suggests that the people of Ohio are in desperate need of cheap, affordable, and nutritional foods.

In addition, the demand for affordable foods could not be any higher because food...