Creating a Sicilian food franchise [HELP NEEDED]

[Xeon]

But don't you think customers be like "Oh, I just have to buy one of these online and then I can do it by myself" ?

Speaking from a customer's POV.....nope. I want to eat arancini and I want it now. I don't want to prepare the ingredients, the sauce, whatever, I don't want to go through all the troublesome process of preparing it. I want it served to me pipping hot where I can then eat it while watching TV or reading a book. I don't care about the tools, just the food.

You don't go to the ice-cream man asking him what tongs he uses or what is the process he uses to create his ice-cream flavours.....you go to his cart, salivate over his ice-cream pics and menu, and you want to eat those now. Unless you're someone with a fetish for ice-cream tongs and tools.

Or do you think that even though they will come back for the quality ingredients, know-how I provide and the fact they can eat them quick without getting their hands dirty ?

You'll be selling the tastiness, the convenience, the story, the human connection of talking to you while you prepare their arancini and associated food delights....and if it tastes good, and it's convenient, I like who you're and the price is reasonable, I'm sold.....

 

[Umbired]

Speaking from a customer's POV.....nope. I want to eat arancini and I want it now. I don't want to prepare the ingredients, the sauce, whatever, I don't want to go through all the troublesome process of preparing it. I want it served to me pipping hot where I can then eat it while watching TV or reading a book. I don't care about the tools, just the food.

You don't go to the ice-cream man asking him what tongs he uses or what is the process he uses to create his ice-cream flavours.....you go to his cart, salivate over his ice-cream pics and menu, and you want to eat those now. Unless you're someone with a fetish for ice-cream tongs and tools.



You'll be selling the tastiness, the convenience, the story, the human connection of talking to you while you prepare their arancini and associated food delights....and if it tastes good, and it's convenient, I like who you're and the price is reasonable, I'm sold.....

Got it now and what you say sounds logical. But when it comes to my business I become a bit "paranoid", thinking about all bad things people could say about the food, process,... I always try to imagine all kind of situations to be prepared.

As I said, for now I am starting as a caterer but then I would like to open a store-front (expensive) or a food truck. I'm still doubtful. Each has his pros/cons...

 

[Umbired]

Hi guys !

I have contacted a small local influencer on Instagram (+2.500 followers), talked to her and is very nice. I'm going to bring her 6x arancinis so that she can taste, publish on his account and talk around her about my little business.

 

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[Cinquecento18]

Great for the influencer! It's a good idea to promote on social media!

For the chocolate arancini, personally i don't like it, but it's my opinion, you can try to sell and see if this is a good idea.
But also if you eat arancino with "ragù" or something like that first and after you eat another with chocolate, imo it's not a good choice, the much rice in there can destroy the flavor of first eats and can be not a good experience for client.
For dessert you can give your client something different to arancini, and i suggested you cannoli (easy to prepare) or cassata or other dessert.

Remember it's my point of view...

 

[Umbired]

Some incoming news...
I have just got the paper that attests that I can produce and sell my arancini by authorities! Great news !

I'm now thinking about the definitive business model I should adopt.
Selling arancini to privates is cool because I could create my own brand but it would take a lot of time to be someone in the (local) food industry and I should sell a lot in order to live with this activity. If I would like to get more trafic, I should open a store but it has an important cost and that's not the best thing to do when you start.

The alternative I am thinking about is to look for local sandwich bars, contact them explaining the advantage of my product, the profit they could get selling my arancini. I would do this for the sandwich bars near my town, than expand my prospection area and hit more and more sandwich bars in my region.

What do you guys think ?
Is it the second alternative (B2B) more interesting to hit the Fastlane, or would you suggest something else ?

Thank you !

Umberto

 

[Umbired]

Hey Umberto, again Angelo from Sicily. I think the idea it's great, but if your selling arancini outside of Italy definitely go for a premium price 'cause it's considered as something "exotic" and people are willing to take just to get something different. Something between 2-3 euro will be fine. Consider in Milan there is a chain called Vucciria that sells relatively small ones for 3 euro... If I remember well, you're from Belgium where the cost of living is medium-high compared to Italy, so I would say 2.5-3 would be fine

Ciao Angelo Thank you for your feedback !
Indeed I think 3€ is definitely a good price in order to give a good real/perceived value to the customer. Less would mean a low-valued product in the eyes of the customer I assume.

 

[Umbired]

whatever you do, you should think for the long term :

a reminder :

View: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=r6hlYqgw5jI



.

Hello guy93777 and thank you for the vid
Indeed I always think long term.

 

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[Umbired]

Btw, when I was in Krakow there was an entire shop selling just sicilian brands. Don't know if it was successful, but certainly they have an appeal

You mean this one ?

LES 10 MEILLEURS restaurants à Cracovie - Mis à jour août 2023 - Tripadvisor

Vous sortez à Cracovie, Lesser Poland Province : lisez sur Tripadvisor 285 535 avis sur 2 337 restaurants à Cracovie, recherchez par prix, quartier, etc.

www.tripadvisor.fr

 

[Umbired]

No it's not a restaurant. It's a minimarket which only sells sicilian brands (i.e. Coffee, pasta, wine, etc.)

Ok I see what you mean

 

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[GeoffP]

Hi GeoffP and thank you for the feedback,
1) There are a lot of Italians in my locality and non Italian residents love Italian food : pizzerias are always full. Arancini is not a common meal like pizzas or pastas, but some stores sell them, although they're industrial and really different from real Arancini that you can taste in Sicily.
2) One Arancino would cost me 0,50€ max. and the selling price would be 3€. I do not know other costs linked to (such as electricity for the oven,...) but this must to be established once the monthly bill arrive since I never did an extensive use of the oven to cook Arancini every day, just for personal use.
3) I currently do not know if my strategy mentioned above will be the most profitable, but in order to test the market I am firstly cooking them at home and propose my Arancini as a caterer/takeaway. But yes, I guess the most profitable way would be to sell them to local restaurants. Although in the long term I do not know if it would be the best strategy : if one or more restaurants close or they just do not want to get my food anymore for any reason, my business would collapse. This way I would be restaurant-dependent and that violate the commandment of Control. What do you think about that ?

1) Is the non Italian population sufficiently aware to know and buy this? Especially if the only product on the market is crap.
2) Is that just ingredient cost?
3) It only violates control if you limit the number of restaurants.I bring this up because this is how Chinese dumplings are often handled here in the US. You'll take a haircut on price but you won't have to screw around with marketing to the general public or drumming up business. Nothing stops you from pursuing both avenues but this may kick start you.

 

[Umbired]

Yup, there's really no hard and fast rules on value skew
You could go through that sample list in MJ's book and try to skew as many as you can lol

Could you please remind me what chapter do I find this list in ? Because I cannot find it :/

 

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[Umbired]

1) Is the non Italian population sufficiently aware to know and buy this? Especially if the only product on the market is crap.
2) Is that just ingredient cost?
3) It only violates control if you limit the number of restaurants.I bring this up because this is how Chinese dumplings are often handled here in the US. You'll take a haircut on price but you won't have to screw around with marketing to the general public or drumming up business. Nothing stops you from pursuing both avenues but this may kick start you.

1) A lot of people (especially non Italian) know this food just because they know "a friend of a friend" can cook them on demand and do extra money cooking Arancini. This food is known but no one started an Arancini business yet.

2) Yes, just ingredient cost. I cannot calculate other costs because I am now focusing on how selling them from home and then opening a store. Producing and selling Arancini from home will maintain low costs. But compared to people who do this just to get some extra money for their friends and neighborhood, I will do this like a business : I will use social media, some paid advertising on facebook, create a website.

3) Yes indeed, combining both would be even better. But what I would like firstly is to create my brand and sell Arancini on my own, that's the basis. Then I will contact snacks/restaurants and propose them, but I fear that they could "steal" my idea and do them by themselves. What's your thought about ?

 

[GeoffP]

3) Yes indeed, combining both would be even better. But what I would like firstly is to create my brand and sell Arancini on my own, that's the basis. Then I will contact snacks/restaurants and propose them, but I fear that they could "steal" my idea and do them by themselves. What's your thought about ?

They could in theory do that but how easy is the product to create in house well? The value point is that they don't have to create the product and can just cook it and sell it.

Bear in mind that nothing is stopping them from doing that right now or once you get popular.

 

[Umbired]

They could in theory do that but how easy is the product to create in house well? The value point is that they don't have to create the product and can just cook it and sell it.

Bear in mind that nothing is stopping them from doing that right now or once you get popular.

When you know how to do it, you get used to. It's like cooking pizzas : it is hard for someone that never did one, but once you learn, have the right ingredients, it is easy.
Of course, it costs time. And as you say, they would rather pay for a supplier like me (as long as I propose a great product with an affordable price) than spend time to cook Arancini.

 

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[Umbired]

Bingo. It sounds like Chinese dumplings here in the states. Unless you're a dumpling house, you're buying it from a third party.

The benefit of B2B here is that it would provide you with sales and capital to fund your commercial kitchen, which I doubt is cheap if Belgium is anything like the States. Why sell 1 when you can sell 100?

Now that we're on the subject, are there any other Sicilian delights that aren't executed well in Belgium? Why stop with Arancini when you can bring other products to market? Especially if you're going to go to the expense of kitting out a truck.

So if I understand well, in the US you can get Chinese dumplings only via supermarkets/grocery stores/restaurants ? Is not there any artisanal store/brand selling them ?

If you open a store here in Belgium you have some financial support from the government, but of course you always must have some capital aside. I'm not against B2B, but what I fear is I always have to rely on big businesses who could stop the partnership for any reason overnight. They would control my business. In contrast, owning a store (and then a franchise) would be more reliable because I would depend on my own business (and of course on my customers). But yes, B2B would be complementary to that.

Yes, there are a lot of other Sicilian meals. Therefore they would be more elaborate dishes and you must have skills for that, that I do not have. I am way too far from being a chef. Arancini is quite easy to cook and easy to teach to a future employee.

Beyond that I would also propose Granita, a fresh summer drink made up of ice and lemon/almond/grenadine syrup. It exists in different variants too.
And by the way, for the very first step I am not going to open a store or selling in a food truck (in order to test the market and to keep prices low), but from home as a caterer.

 

[Umbired]

It's an entire chapter. . .



Chapter 35

Thanks MJ, I am going to re-read it

 

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[Umbired]

I am specifically referring to the dumplings sold in restaurants. They are labor intensive and as a result many restaurants just buy them as opposed to making them in house.

Great idea you gave me here GeoffP Thanks

 

[Umbired]

hi guys, and hi Umbired, i'm another sicilian man here, and i'm glad to see many other on this forum.

The tools on the video, i dont know if is this the same, is produced in a city near me and im my opinion is only for made more easy the arancini, nothing industrial. I think you can use at the beginning and after when you have more practice you can use only your hand.

Arancini is fenomenal product and you can play with many ingredients to sell a good tasty product, the key is only the quality of the ingredients who you use.

In upsell you can consider implement with cannoli, to fill in front of client, good idea of implementing in my opinion. Also you can offer a good sicilian wine red or white for arancini, and a dessert wine like as "moscato" or "passito" for cannoli.

Sorry for my english I wish you the best! for anything, im here!

Ciao Peppe
It's quite interesting to see how many Sicilians there are here. I would not have bet !

Yes, they produce it at Ragusa (I just got my order this morning!). I already make arancini, but I thought to buy these so that they always have the same shape and weight for 2 reasons :
1. My customers will be accustomed to the regular shape (round and pointy)
2. I ordered also small ones, in order to propose another size : small and big
Making them by hand is more traditional, but they always be different. Do you understand what I mean ?

Yes indeed, it's also possible to make them with chocolate inside, as a dessert. Do you think people would buy both : arancino for meal and arancino for dessert ? It would be too much, would not it ?

Thank you for the nice ideas you gave me and do not worry for your English (I also learned English in Italy eheh)