CREATIVECUISINE

Personal Chef Service

Market Study

Introduction
Creative Cuisine, to be located in Somerville, Massachusetts, will provide personal chef services
to busy working professionals in the West Suburban Boston area. This service will include
personalized menu planning, grocery shopping and preparation of dinner entrees and side dishes
on a regular basis. The service will be available as a monthly, bi-weekly or occasional service.
Price will vary according to level of service selected. The meals will be prepared in the client's
home during a weekday while the client is at work. All meals will be packaged, labeled and
refrigerated or frozen with complete instructions for final preparation. Creative Cuisine will use
all its own utensils and will do complete clean-up.

Creative Cuisine's target market will be affluent working couples with children who want to
enjoy healthy dinners at home with minimum preparation. The average clients will be
homeowners age 35 to 55, with incomes over $100,000. Creative Cuisine's marketing focus is to
provide them with a convenient, unique and high-quality alternative to cooking, dining out, or
take-out meals.

Creative Cuisine's targeted high-end consumers continue to demand more convenience and
quality in their dinner meal. Nearly half of America's dinner meals are currently prepared outside
the home by full-service restaurants, grocery store prepared food sections, and take-out food
retailers. Two of Creative Cuisine's advantages over such competitors are: 1) its ability to
completely customize meals to the client's tastes, preferences and dietary requirements; and 2) its
ability to deliver these meals directly to the client's home refrigerator/freezer, thus saving clients
valuable free time that would otherwise be spent shopping, driving, and cooking. The customized
meals personally prepared by Creative Cuisine will be significantly higher in quality, taste and
nutrition than the mass-produced food offered by its competitors.

What follows is a detailed analysis of the current market for a personal chef service.

Current Market Size

Economists at the National Restaurant Association estimated total foodservice sales for 1996 at
$313 billion, representing a 5 percent increase over 1995. That means consumers spent an
average of $855 million per day on food away from home.

According to the National Restaurant Association's1996 Foodservice Industry Forecast, fast

food comprised the largest segment of this market, capturing 47.8 percent of the dollars spent.
The report attributes this success to "fast food's ability to meet consumers' desire for value and
convenience." It was further estimated that at least 64 percent of all fast food purchases were
consumed off-premises.
According to Technomic, Inc., a food industry consulting firm in Chicago, almost half of
consumer food dollars are spent on meals prepared away from home. In addition, food
expenditures rise significantly as income increases according to the Bureau of Labor Statistics'
Consumer Expenditure Survey Data.

Industry Trends
This significant trend of consumers purchasing prepared meals is so pervasive that the
foodservice industry has coined a new term to describe it: "home-meal replacement." Many
businesses are shifting their focus to meet the growing demands of consumers:

 Most supermarkets now include a deli, bakery, and a prepared-foods section. Also, many
offer fast-food service.
 Boston Market has continued to expand its product lines and market share.
 Famous chefs, such as Wolfgang Puck, are offering high-end prepared meals in upscale
supermarkets.
 Fast-food chains such as KFC, Pizza Hut and Taco Bell have formed alliances to offer
multiple product lines under one roof.

There are also several economic and cultural trends that have contributed to this growing
demand:

 Increasing number of women in the workforce

 Increasing number of woman-owned businesses
 Growing number of higher-income households
 Americans working longer hours
 Decreasing amount of leisure time
 Premium placed on convenience
 Trend toward purchasing personal services (i.e., personal-trainers, house-cleaning
services, home shopping services)

According to Foodservice Solutions, a Tacoma, Washington hospitality consulting firm:

"Home-meal replacement is not a luxury today - it's a

necessity. People don't want to take the time to cook; they
have too many other things to do. Americans want high-
quality prepackaged foods. It's the American way - to make
life easier."

Entrepreneur Magazine's February 1997 article selected "Personal Chef Services" as one of the
top service businesses to start today:

"Convenience-craving consumers are always looking for a

way to do things better, faster and cheaper. Often, that means
turning to a specialty-services entrepreneur who knows how
to get the job done right. Those with culinary competence can
likely find a hungry clientele among the ranks of America's
busy working families."

Growth Potential of the Market

Based on the National Restaurant Association's 1996 Foodservice Industry Forecast, the
percentage of food dollars spent away from home has grown from 25 percent in 1955 to 50
percent in 1996.

More importantly, the proportion of the food budget spent on meals away from home increases
significantly as income increases. Households with incomes of $70,000 spent 81 percent more
per capita ($1,278 per person) on food away from home than the average income-reporting
household ($705 per person) according to the Consumer Expenditure Survey conducted by the
Bureau of Labor Statistics.

Also contributing to the potential growth in the market is the rise in affluent households
documented by the Current Population Survey from the Bureau of the Census. From 1990 to
1994 the number of households earning $50,000 to $74,999 increased by 16.4 percent;
households earning $75,000 to $99,999 increased 36.1 percent; and households earning $100,000
or more increased by 61.1 percent in the same period.

Affluent Households Gaining Ground

Change in Number of Households from 1990 to 1994

Increase (Decrease) in Percent

Household Income
Number of Households Change
Less than $35,000 (1,638,000) -3.0%
$35,000 to $49,999 (331,000) -2.0%
$50,000 to $74,999 2,310,000 +16.4%
$75,000 to $99,000 1,841,000 +36.1%
$100,000 or more 2,496,000 +61.1%
Total 4,479,000 +5.0%

Source: Bureau of the Census

A personal chef service is uniquely positioned to take advantage of the increasing demand for
fast food, growing health concerns, and the rise in high-income households. Affluent working
couples want "fast food," but they want it upscale, healthy, and convenient. The founders of
Truly Unique Personal Chef Service in Newport Beach, California, report that their business has
grown 10 to 15 percent every year since opening in 1992. Many of their clients said they were
getting bored with going out to restaurants and wanted something different.
Customer Profile
Creative Cuisine's' target customer will be families with two working, professional parents who
are too busy to cook every night but are fed up with takeout and restaurant food. Their specific
demographics are as follows:

Household Income: Over $100,000

Age: 35 to 55
Education: College degree and/or advanced degree
Marital Status: Married couples or high income single
Job: Professional status (one or both partners)
Children: Preferably ages 7 to 18
Homeowners: Preferably
Location: Live in neighborhoods with high concentration of affluent families

Customer Benefits
Here are just a few of the benefits to customers if they hire Creative Cuisine:

 6 hours per week more free time (1 hour per day cooking/acquiring meal plus 1 hour per
week grocery shopping)
 Very convenient
 Meals customized to personal tastes
 More variety
 Health and nutrition benefits
 Less stress
 Client feels pampered
 It makes life easier
 Don't have to cook
 Less grocery shopping
 Minimal kitchen clean-up
 Peace of mind

The Competition
There are a handful of other personal chef services in the Boston metropolitan area; however,
since this is still a new business concept, there remains a large untapped market.

Most competition for home-meal replacement exists from neighborhood restaurants, upscale
fast-food outlets (e.g., Boston Market) and supermarket prepared meals. Following is a
competitive analysis of the various meal replacement alternatives:

(Website visitor, the size of most monitors prevents us from placing the competitive analysis
chart on this spot. Please link to the Competitive Analysis. After you've read the chart, click the
link at the bottom, Return to Creative Cuisine's Market Study, to return to this page.)
Creative Cuisine's competitive advantage is its ability to deliver consistently high quality,
personalized meals, custom menu planning, grocery shopping, and preparation of meals right in
the client's home for consumption at the client's convenience.

This is an opportune time for beginning a personal chef service. According to Entrepreneur
Magazine, some of the fastest growing trends in service businesses today include:

 Servicing smaller, upscale markets

 Products and services for children and their parents

Creative Cuisine is better positioned to service small, upscale markets in a personal way than are
the other competitors. Creative Cuisine's personal chef services are specifically geared toward
affluent couples with children. Busy working parents have more quality time to spend with their
children when they aren't rushing to get dinner on the table, and their children get a more
nutritious dinner. Creative Cuisine also has the advantage of being a home-based business which
requires lower overhead and start-up costs than a traditional foodservice business.

Target Markets
The following cities in the West Suburban Boston area have been targeted by Creative Cuisine.
All have high average household incomes and large populations of educated, married couples
with families who own their own homes:

Demographic Summary
West Suburban Boston Communities

Ave. Married
1996 1996 Owner Ave. College Degree
Community Household
Households Pop. Occupied Couple/
Income Age
Family
Weston $137,077 3,514 10,321 87% 90% 42 68%
Wellesley $116,736 9,070 27,289 81% 88% 38 69%
Lincoln $101,177 2,806 7,919 54% 89% 34 60%
Winchester $100,946 7,698 20,735 79% 87% 40 55%
Lexington $99,180 11,145 29,938 82% 86% 42 59%
Newton $94,753 30,952 82,798 69% 84% 39 57%
Belmont $84,873 10,080 24,871 60% 84% 42 55%
Brookline $80,039 26,206 56,034 43% 76% 40 64%
Arlington $65,610 19,705 44,200 57% 81% 42 42%
Watertown $63,636 14,999 32,174 46% 77% 41 41%
Cambridge $63,489 41,264 93,349 30% 63% 36 54%

Source: Equifax National Decision Systems, 1996, Courtesy of Community Newspaper Company
Market Penetration
Research indicates the most effective advertising tool for a personal chef service is placing a
small display ad in a weekly community newspaper with a paid subscription base of 5,000 to
40,000 readers. All of the above communities have a weekly community newspaper, although
some offer free subscriptions and some have a paying subscriber base.

In addition, the following marketing tools will be used:

 Offering $100 discount on initial service for first-time customers

 Developing contact list for referrals through friends, family, co-workers and networking
 Fliers and business cards placed at strategic locations
 Occasional advertising in other publications (e.g., Boston Symphony program)
 Press releases to community newspapers and radio stations

During the initial inquiry by the prospective client, an appointment will be scheduled in the
client's home to discuss the service. At the first meeting, the Creative Cuisine chef will present
sample menus and sample meal options. A questionnaire on food choices and preferences will be
completed. After presenting the pricing structure, a plan will be chosen, a check will be
collected, and a date will be set for the first service. An interim phone call will be made to
present the personalized menu and obtain menu approval. A small gift will be left at the first
service appointment with a thank you card. A follow-up call a few days after service begins will
inquire into the client's satisfaction with the meals. If this is a trial customer, an additional call
will be made one week later to see if their is interest in becoming a regular client; if so, a regular
service date will be set. For all future service, a check made out to Creative Cuisine will be left at
the client's home on the service date.

Creative Cuisine has the potential to create a very profitable business by capitalizing on several
major trends of the 1990s. With the increasing numbers of affluent families comes their
increasing demands. Creative Cuisine can help solve some of their problems while meeting these
demands.

Problem Creative Cuisine Solution

 More stress
 No time to cook
 Too many decisions
 Want to eat healthier
 Hate to grocery shop
 Tired of same old food
 Impersonal world
 Less stress
 Relax with family instead
 Fewer decisions
 Eat healthier
 We'll grocery shop for you
 Lots of variety in food choices
 Personal attention