Local Bite

Local Bite Business Model Canva
market research

Inspiration

We are a multicultural team who met for the first time in 2019, by joining the Joyful Leadership training, a social laboratory for creative minds who aspire to make a positive impact in the world. Since then, we are bound. The current covid19 crisis has pushed us to join our forces to tackle the socio-economic challenges we are facing. We have started from what is concerning us the most, as representatives of the European young generation: travelling restrictions. On another aspect, small entrepreneurs are in a deep crisis: because of the lack of customers, sales are limited. Is there a way to keep on discovering Europe and help local economies as well?

That’s how Local Bite was born!

What it does

Our aim is developing a new dimension of “gastro-tourism” by connecting local food producers to European travellers. As a customer, you can subscribe to our tasting journey and receive a box of local genuine food products, traditional recipes and entrepreneurs’ stories from a different European country each month. As a producer, you can jump on our platform to offer your goodies and share the story behind your business with European customers who are physically distant from you, but may be willing to reach you and visit your local reality once the crisis is over.

How we built it

Local Bite is not a traditional e-commerce site, but an original platform which connects suppliers and their customers. Through partnerships with local businesses in diverse European countries, we offer boxes with an assortment of high quality products. The quality is a key factor in our business and all suppliers are selected and met in person with the aim to create interesting online content for the customer as well. With videos, photos, written postcards or recipes we can offer a tour showing the history of wine celery in Tuscany or Christmas traditions in the Czech Republic. A customer can choose from various options - the main product is a subscription box or a gift box. The subscription box can be offered as a surprise box: when a customer subscribes for a monthly plan, he/she will receive different products each time. This option is for people who like to experiment: they don't really know to which country the box will take them. A Magic moment of surprise!

A subscription box enables business continuity- sales of products for a longer period (the subscription is up to 1 year ) that is why we will promote this plan the most. The products are chosen and based on a general pre-selection, to fulfill all the wishes and expectations of the clients. A subscription box is delivered monthly. Another option allows the personal selection of the products according to their origins or special needs.

Challenges we ran into

The biggest challenge is how to resolve the international business across Europe. In order to keep the chain under our control, we have decided to start the business with Italy, Croatia and Czech Republic, the countries we know the most.
We are aware that another challenge is the logistic system. This would require deeper analysis taking into consideration sales volumes and costs. One of the possible solutions is outsourcing the service.

Accomplishments that we are proud of

As a team, we have agreed on a concept that was developed from scratch. We managed to find a solution fulfilling the customers desires and the small entrepreneurs’ needs at the same time. This business model might be an attractive way to promote local products from small producers not only during the Covid crisis and it is applicable even for small sizes of the businesses. We have studied the market and haven't find any similar concept in Europe, so Local Bite has potential to succeed. We found a similar project in the USA where the subscription box model is popular. Local Bite doesn’t offer a simple e-commerce platform but brings an original way of selling a product (the subscription box business). Together with additional content in our boxes (receipts, letters, video tours, brochures on the product story) and voucher for a free tour to visit the localities, we want to give a travelling suggestion once we will be allowed to go abroad.

By building a strong and trustful community of small entrepreneurs and highlighting the European cultural heritage on a local level, Local Bite paves the way to a new dimension of travelling, with a touch of mystery and expectations.

What we learned

The creation of the idea, the development and the implementation are three different phases.

What's next for Local Bite

On a shorter term: Defining the logistics, Finding partnerships and investors, Testing the products On a five year perspective: Business expansion to new countries/ new segments of products