How to Start a Veg Delivery Business

 

Starting a veg delivery or veg box delivery business is a combination of hard work and long hours. You need to be up early, buying the very best produce from the market and deliver excellent customer service throughout the day. Its a competitive market and not for the faint hearted. You will need passion and determination to make it work, if you succeed however you will feel fulfilled, food is a great business, its a shared love. Here is the ultimate guide on starting your own veg box delivery business.

 

 

Know Your Onions

When starting your veg box business you may choose to buy direct from growers or you may wish to purchase from your local wholesale market. Most major cities have them with New Covent Graden in London as one of the most famous.  Having great suppliers and growers on-side is key to ensuring that your produce is fresh and to the right standard for your customers. When you start spend lots of time speaking to the market traders and the growers, they will tell you all you need to know. Remember however quality is key. Buying cheap will see your customer disappear as fast as they come on board.

 

 

How much money can I make with my veg delivery business?

This all depends on how you choose to run your business and how large you are. At a small scale you are not going to be a millionaire, the margins are small once you have taken into consideration all of your marketing and operational costs. That said, many have grown and made significant sums of money.

 

Should my veg delivery business be Organic or Conventional?

Its controversial with arguments of the benefits on both sides, ultimately the decision is yours. You should however be clear and believe in the decision you make. You can certainly charge more for organic however it will cost you more to buy the fruit and veg for your boxes as the farms are less productive, delivering a lower yield on each of the crops. Organic crops can also be a little harder to come by at certain times of the year, this may result in having to put the same contents in your boxes week after week which is a sure fire way of losing your customers.

 

Where should I start delivering?

One of the major costs in a veg delivery business is of course the cost of delivering! With fuel, van costs, insurance and your delivery driver wages the costs still add up so when you start target your areas very carefully and try and build up round density so that you have many drops in a small area. This way your days are shorter and you will save money on your fuel and labour. Don’t be tempted to spread out too far too quickly.

 

 

How shall I package my veg boxes?

Most veg box companies deliver in either single use corrugated card boxes, multi-trip cardboard boxes or re-usable plastic or wooden crates. Whilst you can argue a multi-trip cardboard box is better for the environment than a single use corrugated one is the argument is not straight forward. Often the re-cycling process of re-using the multi-trip boxes may be higher than the single use veg boxes that can easily be deposited into the recycling bin. In addition, whilst re-usable plastic veg boxes can be cleaned each trip the cardboard ones generally cannot be. Would you like you veg delivered in a box the last customer cat has sat in!?

How to market my veg box delivery business?

As you would market any business! Ensure that you have a good on-line presence of course but do not negate the importance of getting yourself known locally. Try visiting your local farmers market and eating up a stall, advertising in the local press and targeted leafleting campaigns. Remember to make sure your targeting is in a small geographic region in order to maximise that round density. And of course, list your new business on the veg-club.com so your customers can find you by searching by geographic region.

 

 

 

What other products shall I sell?

Many veg box businesses will expand in to a wider range of groceries often starting with dairy – milk and cheese and then followed by everything from biscuits to jams. Some also offer meat. Whilst it makes sense to sell more to each customer you deliver to be careful not to become a supermarket or you may lose whatever was special about your offering in the first place.