If you’re a small business looking for some inspiration on how to grow and succeed in this unprecedented and challenging economy, then this business case study might be well worth your two minutes to read.
Of course every business is different, with different ambitions and markets. Each facing different challenges, but familiarising yourself with the success stories and learning about what to do and (perhaps more importantly) what pitfalls to look out for can help you as a business owner to refocus and enhance your existing business plan.
In this case study, we’re going to take a look at the London based office fruit basket delivery company Fruitful Office, a business that was founded back in 2005. It has grown from a two-man band to a company that now operates in five countries across Europe. A lot of hard work was necessary along the way, but ultimately its success now speaks for itself. So what can we learn from their 15 year journey?
Identified a simple, but under-served need of a specific consumer demographic
This is easier said than done of course but Fruitful Office initially started out with an idea, like most businesses. They believed that fresh fruit baskets should be found in every office, much like water dispensers are now. They had a goal that fresh fruit should be made available to employees in every office across London and the UK.
And so, their co-founder Vasco de Castro says, “We believe this is so important that we quit our jobs in the City to set up Fruitful Office, the UK’s original workplace fruit supplier. We only focus on offices – which means we can offer a level of service that meets companies’ high expectations on both quality of product and customer service. By making regular deliveries we are able to keep our prices low for you, while still offering the highest quality fruit and customer support.”
Key challenges that were faced:
There were of course a lot of challenges that the startup encountered along the way. One was how to design a successful business model with fruit being so highly perishable. To maintain the quality of the fruit, the company had a tight and widespread distribution network with a huge number of local suppliers that could be relied upon to get the fruit to the offices quickly. Vasco says:
“The entire logistics around this is incredibly challenging. It involved setting up complex management systems and local distribution hubs throughout the country so we could be the local supplier for all our customers.”
Another challenge Fruitful Office faced was the recession in 2007. Many businesses at this time were failing and shutting down, but Fruitful Office experienced high levels of growth in this uncertain period. asco attributes this to several core ambitions of the Fruitful Office Brand
Firstly, they focused on building a reliable team. Vasco and co-founder Daniel Ernst had problems trying to find reliable staff because of the unsociable fruit packing hours.
“As the business grows, you simply can’t do everything and be everywhere, so you have to surround yourself with a great team you trust and feel comfortable delegating.”
They made sure their team was passionate about the job, for starters. Then, they ensured their company offered the staff members key employment benefits, like training and development prospects. This helped them to create a team that was productive because they had bought-in to a future with the company.
After this was all in place, it was important that the brand looked to the future. In fact, as a small business owner, you should always have one eye on key future plans and ambitions, albeit not at the expense of not taking advantage of the here and now. This helps you to recognise the direction of the business and stay focused on a long term trajectory. For Fruitful Office, this meant looking beyond the business, working towards key social, and environmental causes that they were passionate about. For instance, their ambitious reforestation programme that to date has planted over 11,000 fruit trees for struggling families in Malawi.
Adapting to overcome the pandemic
The national lockdown across the UK was devastating to many businesses. For Fruitful Office, a business that exclusively focused on delivering fruit baskets to offices in urban office hubs (who were not operating exclusively from home) this presented some major challenges to their core business model.
An immediate decision to evolve and diversify Fruitful core service was essential to keeping them afloat during the chaos. Their first major change was to offer a smaller ‘work from home’ basket that managers could still order for their staff members. The brand also stepped up their philanthropic efforts even further by making weekly fruit basket donations to NHS staff in hospitals across the UK. Fostering a lot of good will in the process while many of us weathered the worst of the Covid storm.
Final thoughts
Overall, a business can succeed if it has the right combination of ambition, critical thinking and willingness to evolve its strategies and service to address changing markets and landscapes. It’s a difficult mix to get right, but it’s something that can be achieved, even in the toughest of times.
