2 pages paper

PROPOSAL TO BECOME A VENDOR

AT TEMPE FARMERS MARKET

Prepared for

Ellen Johnson

Procurement Manager

EPR Corporation

Prepared by

Elizabeth Bennett

Chief Executive Officer

Gram’s Jams Inc.

April 20, 2018

Table of Contents 1 List of Figures 1 Executive Summary 2 Contact Information 2 Description of the Company 3 Senior Management Team 3 Description of Product and Service 4 Process 4 Product Attributes 5 Product Lines 6 Inventory Requirements 7 Description of the Industry 7 Industry Life 7 Competitors 7 Seasonality 8 Market Analysis 9 Farmers Market Patrons 9 Millennials 9 Health Conscious/Dietary Restricted Persons 10 Marketing Plan 10 Works Cited/Bibliography 11

Figure

1. Comparison of parts per weight fruit and sugar between Gram’s Jams and Commercial competitors 5

2. Percentage of Arizonans Diagnosed with Diabetes 6

3. Prices of Organic Strawberry Jam per Ounce of various gourmet jam brands 7

4. Average percentage of farmers market products by category 8

5. Percentage of organic buyers that are millennials 9

Gram’s Jams is an Arizona Company founded on the core values of providing people access to affordable, delicious, and healthy jams. All of our products are 100% organic, gluten-free, vegan, and kosher. As well, we only use products that are fair-trade and locally grown, and all of our packaging is recyclable and reusable. The vision designed by the impeccable management team is poised to meet sales estimates of 10,000 units per quarter this year.

Analysis of Gram’s Jams products and market utilized data gathered internally as well as the Center for Disease Control, the Food and Drug Administration, and various peer-reviewed journals.

Gram’s Jams value and positioning can be broken down into 3 categories:

· Product & Process: Gram’s Jams value lies in its superior products, all of which are 100% organic, vegan, gluten-free, and kosher. As well, its low sugar content compared to commercially available products. Its seasonal product lines and and Artisan Offerings provide consumers choice and ensure high quality.

· Industry Analysis: The gourmet jam market is growing in the fruit and nut sector. Priced below many of its direct competitors, Gram’s Jams has cost leadership advantage. As well, jams and other concentrated sweets makeup on average only 5% of farmers market products, making it a fairly untapped market.

· Market Analysis: Gram’s Jams appeals to three main customer bases - farmers market patrons, millennials, and individuals that are health conscious/dietary restricted.

The value held by Gram’s Jams as described by its qualities and industry and market positioning make it an ideal fit for a spot in the Tempe Farmers Market.

For any comments, questions, concerns, or further inquiries, please contact Elizabeth Bennett, Chief Executive Officer of Gram’s Jams, Inc.

Gram’s Jams was started as a family business in the Spring of 2017. Looking for healthier alternatives to commercial products with high sugar content, CEO and co-founder Elizabeth started searching through her grandmother’s battered recipe box. Her grandmother, Judy, lived on a farm in northeast Ohio for most of her life, and with some tweaking, the delicious strawberry jam recipe passed down from generation to generation became the foundation for Gram’s Jams as it is today. At its core, Gram’s Jams aspires to provide its customers with delicious tasting fruit jams that are affordable and healthy so everyone can enjoy them. This is why all of our products are 100% gluten-free, organic, kosher, and vegan. As well, to support our earth and ensure our business is sustainable, Gram’s Jams has pledged to use only fair-trade products, locally grown fruits, and ensure all packaging is reusable and recyclable.

The excellent senior management team at Gram’s Jams is all highly qualified and firm in their belief of Gram’s Jams’ mission. Our core team is made of four individuals, each heading an invaluable branch of our company.

Chief Executive Officer & Co-Founder: Elizabeth Bennett

As the head of the company and one of its foundational team members, Elizabeth oversees all aspects of Gram’s Jams. She holds Bachelor of Science degrees in Accountancy and Management from the W. P. Carey School of Business, as well as a certificate in Applied Business Data Analytics. Elizabeth guides the vision of Gram’s Jams, managing the senior team itself and ensuring that the company’s goals are met while upholding promises to consumers. As well, she oversees the financial aspects and fixed asset investments of the company. Her background in both management and accountancy has provided her both the leadership, communication, and analytical tools to be a successful leader for this burgeoning team.

Head Gastronomer: Jane Eyre

An Arizona native and graduate of the Culinary Arts Institute of America, Jane heads the gastronomy branch of Gram’s Jams. Reporting directly to the CEO, Jane and her small team of work on improving top secret recipes and creating new Artisan Offerings. As each product line is seasonal, Jane works to perfect the point at which each fruit is best for making into jam and the best ratios of sweetener to fruit to ensure a flavorful, perfectly textured product. Spearheading the Artisan line, she works to create unique, delicious flavor pairings that are delectable on their own or paired for a delicious treat.

Supply Chain Manager: Nancy Drew

Nancy holds a Bachelor of Science in Supply Chain Management with a certificate in Food Industry Management and Marketing, and she reports directly to the CEO. Her vast knowledge of supply chain and food sourcing uniquely qualify her to uphold Gram’s Jams key tenets of using only locally grown, organic, and fair-trade products and ingredients. Maintaining relationships with a number of Arizona farmers allows her to ensure the fruit and spices used in Gram’s Jams are all completely organic and fresh and that we are only working with suppliers that are fair-trade. As well as product sourcing, she manages our online delivery system to ensure products arrive fresh and in a timely fashion.

Director of Marketing: Jo March

Holding a Bachelor of Arts in Business as well as Communication from Arizona State University, Jo’s knowledge of human communication and its relations to business bring a keen eye to the marketing team. As the Director of Marketing, she reports to the CEO her ideas and target audience for all marketing campaigns. Her intimate knowledge and interactions with social media marketing in particular make her an invaluable member, spearheading all marketing and advertising campaigns.

Beginning with the recipe for her grandmother’s county fair prize-winning strawberry jam, co-founder and current CEO Elizabeth Bennett developed the basic Gram’s Jams fruit jam recipe used as a base for all our products. While each individual flavor maintains its own rations of pectin to sweetener to fruit, they all derive from the same basic process. All of our products are made in an FDA approved and inspected facility, which is rented for multiple weeks each season to produce our upcoming product line.

The jam-making process begins by making the all natural apple pectin. All fruits contain pectin, a naturally occurring complex polysaccharide found in plant cell walls (Canteri-Schemin, Maria Helene, et al., 2005) that serves as the gelling agent in jams. Apples are very high in pectin, so we produce our own apple pectin substitute for fruits with lower pectin counts. Through a process of boiling and straining, the pectin is extracted and prepared for use in jams, the amounts of which vary depending on the amounts of naturally occurring pectin in each fruit. Blackberries, for example, have a higher pectin count than strawberries; therefore, strawberry jam requires more apple pectin than blackberry.

The next step of the process is making the jam itself. Each jar contains at least 90 parts fruit to sweetener, which requires approximately 18 oz of chopped and mashed fruit. Every piece of fruit is certified organic and inspected before use. Once the fruit is prepped, it will be cooked down using a short boiling method to preserve the flavor before the pectin, lemon juice, and sweetener are added as it continues to boil. The sweetener is necessary for the jam to properly set and to prevent bacteria from growing, but our recipes call for reduced amounts of sweetener compared to commercial brands, due to our boiling process, and we depend on the naturally sweetness of the fruit for the taste.

Once the jam has set, it is canned using safe canning with a hot water bath to extend the shelf-life as they have a low-sugar content. All jars used are 100% reusable and recyclable, and product labels are printed on biodegradable, recycled paper. The jam will last 12 months unopened when stored in a cool, dry place, or 2 months refrigerated after opening.

Each flavor of Gram’s Jams contains 90 parts

fruit per weight to 10 parts sweetener or less. FDA standards for jam include 47 parts per weight fruit to 55 parts per weight sweetener (Food and Drug Administration, 2017).

According to Edwards, Rossi, Corpe. Butterworth, & Ellis (2016) in Trends in Food Science & Technology, current sweetener intake "puts [young people] at an increased risk of developing obesity and the associated metabolic Diseases.”

Figure 1

Source: Code of Federal Regulations Title 21

Arizonans are experiencing elevated levels of diabetes diagnoses in recent years while commercially produced jams remain unhealthily high. We have chosen to use non-processed sweeteners and much lower sugar content, which is essential in jam-making, to provide consumers a healthier jam option than our commercial competitors.

Figure 2

Source: Center for Disease Control (2016)

As different fruits are harvested seasonally, Gram’s Jams products change to reflect the available inventory. Each harvest season our company manufactures eight different flavors, as well as three limited edition Artisan Offerings. While the main eight return each season with little to no variability, the Artisan flavors are unique to that specific season and are not guaranteed to ever return.

Summer 2018 (May-August) Product Line

Summer 2018 (May-August) Artisan Offerings

· Lemon Lavender Blueberry Jam

· Saffron Rose Apricot Jam

· Cinnamon Cardamom Plum Jam

Sales are estimated to be 10,000 units per quarter split between online and farmers market sales. This requires an inventory of approximately 900 units (10.0 fl. oz) of each flavor jam within the product line.

Jam production has existed for hundreds of years, growing in popularity once food preservation become widely understood and practiced.

As a small part of the larger fruit and not market, economic trends for jam are not widely reported; some of the latest data comes from the 2001 Fruit and Nut Yearbook, as reported in the Kirk‐Othmer Encyclopedia of Chemical Technology (2007) which demonstrated supermarket jam, jelly, and preserve sales at $1.6 x 109 for the year. Commercial jam and jelly manufacturers like Smuckers have established market power, but “the upscale market shows the greatest potential for growth. Gourmet fruit spreads, pre-serves, jams, and jellies, including more imports and exotic flavors, are the new products,” (Degregorio, 2007).

Gram’s Jams presence as a Figure 3

specialty, gourmet jam brings it into direct competition from both commercial jams and other specialty companies. Gram’s Jams has a lower sugar content than the commercial brands (see Figure 1) and maintains its promise to be 100% organic, locally grown, and free-trade. Amongst other organic, gourmet jams, Gram’s Jams is priced much lower than the majority of its competitors.

Source: Data collected by Gram’s Jams (2018)

Data gathered by demonstrated that on average, jams and other concentrated sweets make up about 5% of farmers market products, making it a relatively untapped market.

Figure 4

Source: Appetite (2015)

Arizona weather allows for growing throughout the year. To correspond with the various growing and harvest season, Gram’s Jams creates four different product lines - one for each season. This allows our inventory to remain fresh, our customers the opportunity to try new products, and continue to generate revenue during all quarters of the year.

During our most recent market analysis, Gram’s Jams chose a three pronged target market for our company: farmers market shoppers, millenials, and health conscious/dietary restricted individuals.

As a slow business, a large sector of Gram’s Jams revenue is collected at farmers markets; thusly, farmers market shoppers make up the first of our target markets. According to data gathered by the International Food and Agribusiness Management Review (2014) and the Journal of Hunger and Environmental Nutrition (2012), married women over the age of 40 are the most common shoppers at American farmers markets. While we are targeting all farmers market shoppers, we are focusing on this specific shopping demographic.

Data collected by the Organic Trade Association in 2016 showed that millenials (people between the ages of 18 and 34) account for 52% of organic buyers in the United States. As a 100% organic brand, we appeal to this demographic and their organic preferences for products. Given our close proximity to Arizona State University and its population of millennial students, we are choosing to target them as part of out core consumer base.

Figure 5

Health Conscious/Dietary Restricted Persons

All of Gram’s Jams products are 100% organic, vegan, gluten-free, and kosher, and we do not use any processed sweeteners. As well, the sugar content in our jams is significantly less than the commercial FDA standards for jam (see Figure 1). Our jam is an ideal product for individuals that are looking to avoid added sugars, as well as those choosing to shop organic and non-processed foods. Given its status as vegan, gluten-free, and kosher, Gram’s Jams is also consumable for many individuals with dietary restrictions. Because our product aligns with the ideals of these persons, we have elected to target them as part of our customer base.

Our marketing plan will center on social media rather than print medium. Through our company Facebook, Twitter, and Instagram, we will feature our products and our jam-making process, as well as featuring our partners in order to be transparent with our customers. We will be posting our location, alongside times and dates, of all farmers market appearances so our customers always know where to find us. Farmers markets will be our main source of product distribution, supplemented by orders placed through our website and shipped directly to our customers.

Byker, Carmen, et al. “Characterizing Farmers' Market Shoppers: A Literature Review.” Journal

of Hunger & Environmental Nutrition, vol. 7, no. 1, 2012, pp. 38–52., doi:10.1080/19320248.2012.650074.

Canteri-Schemin, Maria Helene, et al. “Extraction of Pectin from Apple Pomace.” Brazilian

Archives of Biology and Technology, vol. 48, no. 2, 2005, pp. 259–266., doi:10.1590/s1516-89132005000200013.

Center for Disease Control. “U.S. Diabetes Surveillance System.” Centers for Disease Control

and Prevention, Centers for Disease Control and Prevention,

gis.cdc.gov/grasp/diabetes/DiabetesAtlas.html.

Degregorio, Marnie L. “Fruit Preserves and Jellies.” Kirk-Othmer Encyclopedia of Chemical

Technology, 2007, doi:10.1002/0471238961.fruidegr.a01.

Edwards, Cathrina H., et al. “The Role of Sugars and Sweeteners in Food, Diet and Health:

Alternatives for the Future.” Trends in Food Science & Technology, vol. 56, 2016, pp.

158–166., doi:10.1016/j.tifs.2016.07.008.

Food and Drug Administration. “CFR - Code of Federal Regulations Title 21.”