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    Success In the Food Social Enterprises
    Success In the Food Social Enterprises
    Success In the Food Social Enterprises
    Ebook283 pages1 hour

    Success In the Food Social Enterprises

    By Vincent Gabriel

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    About this ebook

    It has been my consistent objective to use my books, courses and practical aid to be able to help others. My heart is always touched by the brave efforts of the outstanding people, whom society describes as the marginalised to eke out a living in communities that choose to forget them.

    It is the aim of this book to facilitate their efforts. Social Enterprises are unique. They cannot adopt the ruthless, cunning, often dishonest and sometimes unethical practices that some business organisations resort too. On the other hand they cannot soft pedal their way out of the jungle of the complicated and difficult universe of the market place of buying and selling.

    This book is the middle way of real life management techniques and basic humane approaches to the art and the science of kindness.

    In a way it is meant to be an eye-opener for the Boards of Directors, the managers and the generous public to see how each and every social enterprise must position itself between: Profitâ giving and Self-relianceâ dependence

    I wish every reader a useful experience upon reading this book.
    LanguageEnglish
    PublishereBookIt.com
    Release dateApr 26, 2016
    ISBN9781456625429
    Success In the Food Social Enterprises

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      Book preview

      Success In the Food Social Enterprises - Vincent Gabriel

      Enterprise

      UNIT 1

      We Want To Teach The World A Happy Song Of Self-Reliance

      Synopsis

      At the end of this unit you will know what Food Social Enterprises are and the role they play in the community.

      Introduction

      For a long time, the community has made contributions to worthy causes to help the less privileged members of society. In this book we will examine ways to help the less privileged use their abilities to provide for themselves, their families and play a meaningful role in society.

      What is Social Enterprise?

      The attitudes of society over the years have gone through a wide spectrum.

      There was a time when being disadvantaged was subject to indifference, apathy and neglect. Then through the activities of religious bodies, attitudes have changed and today governments actively work to remove the barriers to get everyone on board as a meaningful player in the community.

      Fig 1.1 Spectrum of Social Enterprises Based on Profit and Giving

      Using Figure 1.1, the two ends of the scale are (1) Profit and Giving (2) Dependence and Self-reliance.

      The two ends of the scale are

      a) Social responsible SR enterprise that focuses on profit and aims to be self-reliant but helps society in a few ways

      b) Charity which is dependent on the goodwill of society and is committed to giving its time, energy and effort to helping its clients

      The other three, which differ in different degrees of self-reliance and dependence, are:

      The Self-help Group. Formed by members of the community to help their own members in overcoming the obstacles by becoming more self-reliant and able to become self-maintaining member of the society.

      The Not For Profit Social Enterprise that sets out to discover ways members can achieve self-reliance through the acquisition of

      • Knowledge

      • Skills

      • Attitudes

      • Values

      The surplus of income over expenditure helps the not-for-profit-social-enterprise fund more programmes to help clients/beneficiaries.

      Non-Profit Social Enterprise puts more emphasis on members’ needs to the extent of bursting its budget in its desire to help.

      The emphasis on the budget is taken as a means of distinguishing the degree of commitment to the client/beneficiary.

      In this book, the term social enterprise is used for ALL FIVE of the parties:

      • Socially responsible enterprise

      • Self-help group

      • Not for profit social enterprise

      • Non-profit social enterprise

      • Charity

      and their tool must be food related as:

      • Training clients/beneficiaries to produce food

      • Running retail food outlets

      • Working in the food related industry

      • Distributing food and related products

      • Exporting food and related products

      The objective is to aim for self-reliance among the organisations and the clients/beneficiaries.

      This book has three sections:

      • The place of food in the betterment of the lives of clients/beneficiaries

      – Overview

      – Interplay of the 9 forces

      Secondly

      The details of food related activities are:

      • Viability

      • Planning

      • Menu planning

      • Purchasing of raw materials

      • Storage of food

      • Marketing, promotion and selling of food

      • Using technology to sell food

      Thirdly

      The details of the lessons learnt from other social enterprises.

      In addition the book has:

      • Tutorials on certain aspects of the retail food preparation activity, like the use of spices

      • Case Studies on the other social enterprises

      • Summaries to capture the main points of the technical units

      Basic Principles of Food Enterprises

      • Focus on the customer

      The ordinary food production facility concentrates on being viable and, that is, by giving the customer what the customer wants.

      When the demand is such that it hardly changes, then the product is called a staple.

      The social enterprise has to accept this truth of the market if it is to be able to sell what it produces.

      On the other hand the social enterprise has to focus on the CLIENT/ BENEFICARY.

      The idea is to teach the client to be able to produce the product that the man in the street is prepared to buy.

      With the skill, ability and the knowledge to make the product, the client has the opportunity to leave the social enterprise and work for a commercial entity.

      • Focus on production and not productivity

      Many of the clients of the social enterprise lack the basic skills of

      – Working in a team

      – Communicating with their peers

      – Understanding instructions

      – Being able to provide feedback

      Much of the work of trainers in the social enterprise is to provide for these basic skills.

      There is a long time before the client can be as productive as that of an ordinary trained skilled employee.

      Hence most food social enterprises regard production as the first stage in the long-term viability of the enterprise.

      • The emphasis on safety and not speed

      • Commercial enterprises demand speed.

      Social enterprises require the client to complete the task.

      The task has to be completed under:

      – Safe condition, without the client being burnt or scalded or cut or injured

      – Proper use of the raw materials like: Control of spoilage

      Control of waste

      – Increased self-confidence in the client’s ability to get the job done

      – Increased practice towards safe, self-confidence behaviour

      It serves no purpose to the social enterprise, if clients get no satisfaction from the tasks being performed.

      • Focus is on mitigating the bad effects of customer coarse behaviour

      Some customers in the market place tend to be impatient, rude and demanding. This is the reality of the market place but the trainers of the social enterprise have to work to offset these bad effects.

      The client cannot be fully protected. That is unrealistic and impossible.

      The client cannot be fully exposed as the trauma may be difficult and dangerous to the client.

      What is needed is a middle way - A mentor to help mitigate the situation, to get customers to tone down their bad behaviour and to get clients to meet the demands of the customer.

      The FSE has to train its clients to be able to manage the expectations of the customer.

      This can be done by:

      Building confidence in the client in the jobs being performed

      Being put in the front-line of the food outlet’s retail counter in stages:

      – Helping to hand out items

      – Taking orders with the help of a mentor

      – Handing out completed orders to the customer

      – Receiving money from the customer and giving back change

      all the while being with a mentor or guide or fellow employee and then being on his own.

      •  Involvement of partners in the training process

      The client has been in the care of: Parents

      Teachers

      Instructors

      all the while and has built a dependent relationship. One of the ways for the FSE to succeed in the training of the client is to actively involve the above partners.

      The support of the parent is close to approval in the mind of the young client.

      The teachers provide guidance and the instructors the technical expertise of what is being done right.

      The client grows in confidence in a limited set of skills that can earn him a living in the real world of food retail business.

      •  Give the customer, at least, the commercial value of the product or service

      The unsaid factor in the social enterprise is the enterprise aims to give the customer:

      • The same quality product

      • In the same quantity

      • At the same prices

      • With the same level of service

      as the customer would enjoy if he bought the product from another vendor.

      The social enterprise is not asking for something different. The social enterprise is asking for fair and equal treatment.

      The basic principles are the same for the FSE and the commercial vendor:

      • Consistent quality

      • Consistent quantity

      The same level of taste as the dish prepared by the commercial vendor.

      •  The next factor is the time limit. Most food is served within two minutes of the customer’s order at the food court, and within ten minutes at a sit-down eatery.

      The clients must be trained to keep to those time standards.

      In some items, where more time is needed as:

      Pizzas

      Premium soup dishes

      Made-to-order food items

      then the customer can be distracted by providing something on the table to distract the customer:

      A small plate of boiled peanuts

      A bowl of appetizers

      A small salad

      Fried cut mushrooms

      Calamari

      Chicken tenders

      Garlic bread

      French fries

      Or a puzzle to be solved and a prize to be won

      The purpose is to relieve the pressure on the serving and kitchen staff to rush and get into accidents.

      • The third factor is the delivery of food to the table. This is the moment of truth. The encounter of the customer with the serving staff may determine the relationship between the FSE and the customer.

      The service should be:

      Professional

      Efficient

      Effective

      Food should be placed on the table carefully without it being split on the customer or on the table

      Be correctly identified. If it is a clam chowder soup, then that is what that should be announced

      The correct cutlery has been placed on the table or will be brought soon. This means that the chopsticks, the spoon, the fork and knife should be sent together

      Coming One Full Circle

      In Britain, in particular, and in Europe, two hundred years ago small farmers were chased out of their small farm plots and pushed to become factory workers.

      Many failed to get jobs in the factory and became dependent on begging.

      Gradually an idea developed to make these beggars earn their keep at work houses".

      This idea found approval among the rich, as the work houses justified their belief that the poor, as everyone else, had to work to earn their keep in society.

      In more enlightened times the above idea remains but society is prepared to invest heavily in

      • Training to get the poor ready to produce products that can be sold to support them

      • Training facilities for the training to be conducted

      • Trainers, who are skilled and most important humane

      • Communications to get the poor to buy the idea of work and sustain those who work hard to get a living for themselves by helping them out with subsidised food, accommodation and medical care provided by socially responsible groups.

      Over time society added the physically handicapped into the scheme and prepared special programmes for them and for acceptance in society.

      Then over time, women who had been stay-at-home mums also wanted to re-enter the economy, and training schemes were tailor-made for them.

      As a way to keep down recidivision, training schemes were devised for ex-offenders.

      From 2008 till date (2014) where there is high (26% of the cohort) youth unemployment in Europe, Social enterprises are being deployed to help youth:

      • Get skills relevant to the needs of industry currently

      • Get a living wage

      • Maintain their confidence and pride

      • Prepare for the eventual recovery of the economy and the re-start of the productive life for these youth

      • Encourage youth to study and use the Chinese language to be able to:

      – Move to China, Hong Kong, Taiwan where European talent and skills are in short supply

      – Remain in Europe and work in the retail shops, restaurants, resorts attractions, that are now thronged with Chinese as the main tourists in most European cities

      – Do on-line business with the Chinese and other Asians

      Case Study 1.1

      Making the Food Social Enterprise more Kind

      ABC has been an idealist since his school days when, at that time, community work meant selling paper stickers called Flag to raise funds for charity. Unlike most of his colleagues, he went further and volunteered for work at a Home for the Aged, at a time, when such places were considered as hell holes for the poor, the lonely, the sick and the bedbound.

      What he saw moved him to work on an academic career to help the community and he eventually graduated with a doctorate, but not without spending all his free time helping out at various Homes for the aged, the blind, the deaf, the chronic sick and eventually in the hospice for AIDS patients.

      He returned to work in a government body and he pushed hard for a more enlightened approach to the marginalised in society.

      In government service, he rose quickly to head the new enlightened movement to partner the commercial sector. In the course, he met an up and coming brilliant young man, who was destined for great heights as a legal advocate.

      Unfortunately their relationship was not without much friction.

      ABC co-ordinated a number of community social enterprises. The brilliant lawyer was appointed Chairman by the President to the same social enterprises that ABC headed as a civil servant.

      Unknown to everyone, ABC had a sloppy habit of not keeping proper records, something that is the hallmark of the civil service in that country.

      To maintain goodwill, ABC had the weakness for giving tiny gifts to most of the prominent persons who helped in the social enterprises.

      Under civil service rules, such gifts had to be at least $100 and within the code of conduct.

      ABC got round by giving gifts valued at only $10 so as not to be subjected to the Code of Conduct. As long as the social enterprises were headed by people who respected ABC and saw his good work, there was no difficulty.

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