Jerzee Fresh Natural Drinks

Jerzee Fresh

The author of this report has been asked to construct a business plan and analysis relating to a hypothetical non-alcoholic beverage (NAB) company. In this case, the company will be Jerzee Fresh. It will focus on drinks that are made entirely of organic fruits and vegetables. As might already be obvious, the drink will be geared towards people in the community that are healthy and active. Included in this analysis will be the significance of the name, the revise mission statement and the justification for its components, a few reasons why this particular NAB was selected, a SWOT analysis of the new brand, a strategic position that will be taken and an overview of the distribution channels that will exist. Something else that should be mentioned are regulatory risks and a few other items. While the healthy drink industry is getting very crowded, this is indeed because there is a marked market shift towards the same and now is the time to carve out a name for Jerzee Fresh.

Analysis

Basis for Name

The key part of the company name, as one might guess, would be the "fresh" half. Indeed, many people are very concerned about the safety and freshness of the fruit and vegetables that they consume. In the time of companies like Monsanto and technologies or methods such as GMO, people are growing more and more concerned about what is in the fruits and vegetables (let alone anything else) that we are eating.

Revised Mission Statement

The revised mission statement of the shall be "The mission of Jerzee Fresh is to provide pure and fresh fruit and vegetable-based drinks that are free of GMO, antibiotics and other artificial presences or methods so as to deliver all of the desired health benefits of these foods without all of the extra substances.

Trends in NAB Industry & Reasons for NAB Choice

If there is one trend within the NAB industry that must be mentioned, it would be that soda drinks of all sorts have seemed to have hit an apex in terms of sales (Balakrishnan, 2015). Just as fast food firms of yesteryear like Mcdonald's and Burger King are struggling to keep raising year-over-year sales, much the same thing is happening with soft drink giants like Pepsi and Coca-Cola and the soda-based drinks that they sell. A related trend is that those same soda companies are seeing the writing on the wall, so to speak, and they have previously diversified into other NAB drink categories such as energy drinks (e.g. Amp), juice, sports drinks (e.g. Powerade) and so on (Clark, 2014). Three reasons why the author of this response chose the Jerzee Fresh name is no GMO or other artificial processes or methods, no non-necessary antibiotics and it is not soda. Indeed, it is healthy, safe and good for the people that are drinking it and there is really no doubt about this, even if the verdict is out on GMO and a few other things.

Strategic Position

The primary strategic position that will be used by Jerzee Fresh is certainly not unique to Jerzee Fresh but it should still serve as a major selling point and thus will give Jerzee Fresh at least a chance to gain new customers. From there, it is all about taste, customer service and availability.

Distribution Channels

The key part to getting in the sight of customers is to become visible where they are. Thus, channels will rely heavily on sales in delis and other restaurants (organic places in particular), organic grocers, standard grocers and convenience stores. Obvious, getting placed with products that are in the same realm as Jerzee Fresh will pay the most dividends but overall visibility in high traffic areas like busy convenience store chains and retail chains (e.g. Walmart) will do good things as well.

Types of Risks

Generally speaking, there will be three types of risk that will be prevalent when it comes to the natural food and drink industry:

• Lots of Competition: As mentioned before, soda would seem to be peaking in terms of its popularity and presence in the NAB field. However, there are a lot of companies that are trying (or have tried) to assert their presence and the resources of firms like Coca-Cola and Pepsi are extremely hard to overcome and this can all create barriers to entry

• Going all natural has its risks in that those antibiotics and other substances used in drinks are not used for no reason. They do indeed prevent disease and help preserve the drinks in question. As such, the overall risk of contamination is higher in natural NAB drinks even if the risk of GMO and antibiotics being present is gone. So long as sanitation and so forth are done well, there should not generally be an issue...but there is a risk.

• Regulation/Compliance -- In comparison to the soda and other industries, what happens in the non-soda drinks including energy drinks and natural drinks is fairly new and nascent in more than one way. While Congress is often weighted down when it comes to regulations and rules, things can always change. That being said, natural drinks are probably not high on the list given what is going on with GMO and artificial components such as non-sugar sweeteners (Main, 2015).

SWOT

• Strengths

• Lots of demand for natural drinks

• No GMO, antibiotics or other artificial substances

• Weaknesses

• Lot of players in the market already

• Some of those players are big ones (Coca-Cola, Pepsi, etc.)

• Opportunities

• Get before clients in natural food environments

• Get before clients in conventional retail environments

• Threats

• Sanitation only real way to prevent disease outbreaks

• Lack of retail space to gain a market presence

• Expensive to buy market space

Conclusion

In the end, it is clear that natural foods and such are the wave of the future and the NAB industry is certainly on different in this regard. That being said, there are already several big players in the market as well as a ton of smaller players. Given that, it is going to be a test over time to gain entry and stay within the market. While localized and small-scale sales are always an option, getting market share and a presence in stores is going to take some money, some hard selling and really good products because the competition is very fierce at this point. It stands to reason that the number of competitors will reduce over time as the true contenders are revealed and the pretenders all away. Regardless, it's going to be a tough fight.

References

Balakrishnan, A. (2015). Report: Soda sales dropped again in 2014. CNBC. Retrieved 22 October 2016, from http://www.cnbc.com/2015/03/26/soft-drink-sales-hit-a-decade-of-decline.html

Clark, M. (2014). What Big Tobacco Taught Big Soda. International Business Times. Retrieved 22 October 2016, from http://www.ibtimes.com/struggling-soda-companies-diversify-following-tobaccos-lead-1709264

Main, E. (2015). Trying To Lose Weight? Stay Away From Artificial Sweeteners. Rodale's Organic Life. Retrieved 22 October 2016, from http://www.rodalesorganiclife.com/food/trying-lose-weight-stay-away-artificial-sweeteners