Hope Blooms Case Study

Hope Blooms Case Study

Submitted by: Parth Bhavsar

Submitted To: Prof. Dawney Kirsten

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Moose Jaw, Saskatchewan

Introduction

Hope Blooms is an organization founded by Jessie Jollymore. HB’s mission was “to empower at-risk youth to be actively engaged in building environments that directly impact the social determinants of health in their communities”. So, we can say that HB is an initiative taken by Jessie Jollymore to spread awareness about healthy eating, food – related chronic illnesses such as diabetes and issues related to food security because Jollymore had worked for 8 years with North End Community Health Centre as a registered dietitian. She wanted to conceptualize the saem by involving the youth of the inner city of Halifax and she was successful in doing so. She then recruited 9 youths between the age of 6 and 9 years to do so and they started it with the planting of tomatoes in that garden.

HB is facing problems like:

1. Ongoing supply, production and capacity issues
2. Expansion of business across Canada as well as on the eastern side of Canada
3. Social media marketing like facebook and twitter, but they have no other marketing activities apart from these two. So, they need to focus on that as well
4. They had recently contracted with Altalntic Super Store but they need to enhance their production line from currently 10,000 to 15,000 – 20,000 to meet the demand.
5. No option of door step delivery from HB youth to local customers like they have to place their order 2 days in advance.

Thesis Statement:

I would recommend to HB to go for social media marketing like LinkdIn, Instagram and Whatsapp to create and develop awareness about the concept of HB, so that it can attract more and more number of customers.  

I would also recommend HB to donate $1.5/ bottle as well as $1.5/dressing from sales of bottle and dressings because after realizing the quality of product, people were ready to pay premium price for that so HB can charge $9.00 instead of $8.00 by looking at the current market situation

Outcome

The outcome of recommendation would be HB can be more profitable organization and can do more charitable work like a) providing $500 scholarship to more number of students going to post – secondary education, b) shelter to more number of women and c) provide free food to more number of elder people who are not getting food for themselves.

It will also help to provide more salary benefits to full – time employee of HB as well as Jollymore can hire more number of full – time or part – time employees who are working as a volunteer and by looking at this more and more numbers of volunteers would like to join by looking at this.

BACKGROUND

Jollymore started HB 10 years back in 2006. Initially her concept was just a concept until she found that 2 African American won the ‘Presidential Award’ for their social business from coffee beans. She then realized that youths are the future of the business and community, so she tried to involve as many youths as possible and she ended up getting 9 youths from age six to nine years. She started the business in an Abandoned garden in the city of Nova Scotia. People of city donated about 100 tomatoes to start with then they got hot peppers and more number of vegetables to grow. They became successful in the second of the business when they got fruits on the planted seeds. Then after they decided to go for herbs business and people at times were also looking for salads dressings and so they started salsa business and named it as ‘Salsamania’.

This business was also successful. They also held their own farmers’ market on – site at the garden, calling the business ‘Super Sonic Veggies’. All these things generated revenue which was utilized for social welfare.

Then their business started to grow, she hired 7 more youths in the business and now 2 of them are full – time member, 4 are part – time and 50 of them are volunteers. They also got nationwide recognition by getting invitation from CBC news on dragon’s den. She prepared 6 of her volunteers for that, they became successful in their business concept and its presentation. They also able to generate $40,000 of donation during that show. That money was also used for social work. Later on, Jollymore decided to register her business as a charitable organization and so that who so ever wants to donate money can be tax free money and can charge her customers for a little lesser price. And so that her business can more revenue and profit and can be used for salary of employees as well as social work. As they registered as a charity organization, people started to donate more and more to get tax benefit as well. And her business increased in terms of size and number of dressings from just one to five and bottles like they started to provide more types of food in 250 ml of bottles.

She knew of 4 P’s of marketing that is product, place, price and promotion. She wanted to take it the other side of Canada as well as across Canada and she used Facebook and Twitter as a social media. She was keeping the website updated with current trend as well as providing on – line order system for pick – up service but customers have to place order 2 days in advance. They came up with promotion during Christmas by providing gift pack in a bag for Christmas. They were charging $2/bag because it was more of a labour work and all gifts pack sold out in no time than they have expected.

People were willing and ready to pay whatever the price kept for dressings and bottles because on the label of bottle says that they are doing social welfare from the profit generated by them and the other side of the label says about the history of the HB. One side says about the ingredients and the other side says about Rylee and Barbara.

They wanted to produce more number of bottles from currently 10,000 to 15,000 – 20,000 but they were lacking the production facilities. They were facing problems like:

1. Their scope of expense was limited as they have only $1,800 for marketing budget and their 69% of revenue goes to pay the employees their salary. So, we can say that marketing budget was very low in this competitive world.
2. They were lacking technology for production development as well as product development as they have just 5 varieties of dressing till date that is very less in number.
3. They were not able to attract more number of youth to work for HB because they don’t have enough money to provide scholarship to them as well as they were recruiting more and more number of volunteers rather than promoting few of them as the board directors and she recruited 10 people from local market as a board of directors.

HB was helding many community programs like:

1. Community outreach Programs
2. Fresh herb Dressing Program
3. Junior Leadership development program that is mentoring them
4. Community suppers and soups for seniors
5. Post- Secondary scholarship program
6. Masters in gardening and dressings

All these programs helped HB in providing and spreading awareness about the concept of HB and help in getting more number of donation

ALTERNATIVE

Alternative: 1

They should charge more price for their bottles from $8 to $9 for retail and $7 for wholesale because people are ready to pay the premium price for the bottles and dressings. And they also know that these money is going to use to social welfare and local communities. So, they can mention the cost of production as $0.95 for bottle with cap, $1.80 for the extra – virgin olive oil, $0.25 for the label, $1.00 for vinegar and spices and $3.00 for labour (For $7.00 selling price in wholesale and $9.00 SP for retail).