What type of business is edible arrangements

Gift basket business owners often short-change themselves on labor when setting prices. Then figure out how much you want to earn for your labor, and add that to the cost of the basket. Most gift basket business operators expect to net 15 to 30 percent of their gross revenue, and they typically reach this goal by applying a percent markup to the cost of the items in the basket.

Then take it a step further. Promoting your gift basket business should include segmenting the market into personal and corporate customers for maximum revenue potential. In addition to selling to different audiences, creating different themed baskets lets you further give people a reason to buy from you. Creating different baskets to meet specific customer needs will help you better promote your business, increase sales and generate profits. Promote your gift basket business by helping people looking for special-occasion gifts find you.

Think about the terms people type into an Internet search engine when looking for gifts. If you have a website with a statistics package, look to see what keywords they used to find you. This will give you ideas to create baskets for holidays, children, business occasions, romantic events, birthdays and get-well situations. Create two main lines of baskets: corporate and personal gifts. Talk to human resources professionals at large companies in your area, ask if they send corporate gifts and what parameters they use for selecting gifts.

Go into local gift stores each month to keep track of what they promote, who they target and how they sell. Make it easy for customers to shop without having you waiting on the phone line or hanging over them in person. Create a website that shows your products and prices and lets consumers create their own baskets.

Divide your website into areas with pages for each type of basket you decided to offer during your market segmentation planning. The people who buy from you can be a significant source of business because consumers trust the advice of friends more than a paid ad.

Create a referral program that gives customers a discount on future purchases for each basket they refer. Small bonus amounts might not motivate people to refer you, but doing something nice for their friends might get them to promote you.

Offer to give friends they recommend a discount on their purchases. Generate referral traffic to your website with Facebook Like, Google Plus, Twitter and LinkedIn buttons, and put customer testimonials on your site. If you have large companies in your area that might be a source of repeat business, send the president a corporate gift basket. Ask his administrative assistant for his birthday and information about his hobbies and create a personalized basket.

You might send a golfer a basket with food items, a sleeve of balls, golf tees and a green marker. Donate baskets to charity events that allow a large number of people to see and bid on your basket over the course of an hour or more. Offer several different baskets as raffle or door prizes to let people see your range of gifts, making sure the charity puts your brochures on the table.

Colorful, nutritious and delicious, fruit looks as good as it tastes. A basket filled with perfectly arranged fruit makes a crowning touch for your holiday table, an easy source of snacks for your backyard celebration or a thoughtful gift for anyone who tries to eat healthily.

You can buy a fruit gift basket, but prices can be prohibitive. Select your container. Though traditional wicker baskets work very well, you can use anything that is attractive, sturdy and large enough to hold your desired array of fruit. Flower pots, bowls, pails, boxes or gift bags are possible choices.

Cushion the bottom of your container with filler, such as shredded paper, plastic basket grass in pretty colors or raffia strips.

A shallow container only needs a thin bed of filler to protect the fruit. A deep basket should have a thick bed of filler to support the fruit and make it visible. Choose your fruit. Pick your favorites or fruit you know the basket recipient enjoys. Apples, oranges, pineapples, grapes and bananas are traditional fruit basket choices, but you can include other fruits as well. Select a few small items to add variety to the basket, if desired.

Candies, nuts, candles, packages of tea or coffee, wrapped cheese and crackers or a bottle of wine are thoughtful additions. Arrange your basket, starting with the largest and heaviest items. Position the largest pieces of fruit in the middle of the basket. Set smaller fruit around the edges, with the smallest pieces on top and filling in gaps. Tuck in any extra items. You might need to reposition the fruit to keep items in place.

Set larger items in the middle of the basket. Finish off the design with a large bow. Use wire to attach ribbon to the outer edge of the basket or to the handle. Year of FDD: One of the most important and exciting training activities is working in the university kitchen at the corporate office where the class learns to make beautiful and delicious! Working as a team, the class goes through the entire process from selecting and cleaning fruit, to cutting and counting to dipping and decorating.

In the end, our hard work came together to create the finished product. Starting an edible arrangement business takes efforts on your part, you can also think toward starting a gift basket business. The goals is to make from the business, so take all the necessary actions to start and build the business.

Save my name, email, and website in this browser for the next time I comment. Primary Menu. Search for: Search. What Fruits are in Edible Arrangements? What Fruits go in a Fruit Basket? How Much is Edible Arrangement Worth? We figured out how to do it against all odds.

Feloni: What was the experience like going from Pakistan to a new life in Connecticut? What was that like as a family, and for you personally? Farid: When you're a 12 or year-old, you're not really thinking. You're thinking you're going somewhere. Wherever you are, it doesn't matter how poor you are, and that's life. But when we came here, things were very different. My parents struggled, but it was also so much better, and especially for my mother.

I used to remember my mother said that her life started when she came here. My great-grandfather had come here as a laborer back at the turn of the century, and there was a lot of stories about America, the people in America, and the opportunity. And she just lit us up at that point. She'd say, "OK, time to get busy. Get out there and do stuff. Go do whatever you need to do because I've heard that you can make it here, so go make it. Feloni: As you were building the Edible Arrangements business, how did you figure out a way to make what may have seemed like a novelty concept that could work in a small, boutique setting, and turn it into a huge, sustainable business?

Farid: I worked at the flower shop between 13 and Back then, if you really did good in school you could get a piece of paper that told you you could get a job, and I used that to get work at Burger King. And at Burger King I learned about branding.

What I saw was that everything was systematic. The concept for me, even when I was working at the flower shop at 13, was that it was all about the customer. And the other thing is branding. Even when we had our flower shop I made a logo — I tried to act as a brand. But when we did Edible, that's when all those years of experience gave me the opportunity to create a real brand. We spent the first six or seven months creating a logo, and I was lucky enough that I had worked with someone whose brother was a designer, and he designed our logo.

It was designed by a person who probably would charge hundreds of thousands of dollars these days! And so I think it's the brand. But I never dreamed that I would have stores. I think there was an Inc. The dream wasn't really big, that we were going to open thousands of these. But when you can do one, or two, or 10 right, then it's easy to replicate as long as you're taking care of every process.

The thing about Edible is not only does it have to taste great, but it has to look amazing. It has to be delivered on time. You have to handle the logistics of it so that a customer experience is what makes them keep coming back.

Feloni: When did you make that shift from, "Let's just have 35 locations," to wanting hundreds? Farid: I felt that there wasn't a challenge or boundary, especially as the internet came around, with what technology allowed you to do. And , was like this magical time where anybody that was in technology was now using it to bring products to customers through the web. I saw this opportunity and point of sale was becoming easier. Before that, creating networks and all those things was really expensive.

If you wanted to have 10 or 15 locations, connecting them required very complex and expensive systems. Now it wasn't. For me, the "aha" moment came as we were building those first five or 10 locations and people started coming to us from California.

People would tell me, "Do you really want to go to California? So people came to us. People came to us from Dubai and said, "Hey, can we open there? That's how you expand. Because once we planted the flag in California, that's when other people in there came to us, and then the stores just kept growing.

Feloni: It was a domino effect. And when you had requests coming from other countries, it was almost like, "Why not? Feloni: When you're saying that you always wanted to have each of these locations be perfect, what happens now when you're scaling? How are you able to keep that in mind, and what were some of the challenges that arose there?

Farid: There are always challenges. I think in any business, people are the ones that make it or break it. So I think first it's getting the right people. People ask me, "Why didn't you do corporate stores? Why did you franchise?

It was very debt-intensive and everything. But a person comes in and says, "Hey, I like what you're doing and I want to do that in Waltham, Connecticut," or, "I want to do that in New Jersey," and we always felt that they're just like us. We're small business owners and we know the neighborhood we're in. We know what the challenges are. Franchisees have to have that same passion and that's what happened.

In our concept, it was really selecting the right people who kept making us grow. My passion has always been for small business owners because I think they're magical. They not only are working in that neighborhood, but they're living in that neighborhood. They're looking to make their community better and because they're part of that community. And that was the secret to our success, that we always looked for that right person and then they would, of course, hire the right people. I always hoped that they would do it like the way Charlie did it.

As a year-old, we would jump through hoops for this guy because he was just an amazing guy who worked harder than anyone, he loved his customers, and he had a successful business. I think that's what we have. We have very connected franchisees in our community. Feloni: In , franchisees filed a lawsuit because they were unhappy with the way that you changed the new terms of service. What happened there? Farid: I feel that every five years, a person has to do what I would call a "soft boot," and every 10 years you have to do a "hard boot.

In , we were coming up to our first year anniversary and we were doing well, and I felt that we had to look internally and change. The world was changing. The iPhone and all these things that were happening that were connecting the customer — it was moving a lot faster than it used to move. So with that, we started to push some initiatives out there that didn't make people happy.

And it's difficult to get along in a family, let alone a franchise concept, so of course you're going to have disagreements. We had close to stores at that time, so we had a certain number of franchisees that had issues and we worked through them. We're going through that change one more time. We're in the middle of our next 10 years. It's gone by so quickly where now we have to evolve again. All around us, it's the world of Amazon now. It's not only digital, but lucky for us that people are going more towards natural products and fruit, so we are now launching a smoothie concept.

We're putting yogurt in smoothies because we have fruit, and that same fruit can be used to make juice bars and all these things. So there's a business opportunity and it's another hard boot. Feloni: Were there lessons from the first hard reboot that you're going to take to this upcoming second one to make it go a little easier?

Farid: I don't think change is ever easy. I can sit here and say, "Oh yeah, it'll be easy. And it's even harder in business because my partners in franchising are entrepreneurs. They're people just like me. The best part of franchising is that if you can convince these franchisees of something, you'll move mountains.

And at the same time, convincing them takes a lot because these are different personalities. That's what makes them successful. So with that, it's never going to be easy, but it has to happen. We have to keep changing. Feloni: Were there communication lessons, maybe, that you learned from the first time, where you can bring the franchisees in easier to your plan?

Farid: Of course. I think the first thing is you have to be clear about where you're going. Amanda Breen. Chloe Arrojado. Entrepreneur Store. A group of researchers analyzed different food chain products and found plasticizer compounds that can cause cancer, infertility and asthma. A Hooters waitress revealed on TikTok how much money she makes per week just from tips. The amount far exceeds the average salary in the region where you live.

Skip to content Profile Avatar. Subscribe to Entrepreneur. Magazine Subscriptions. Home Home. Edible Sculpted fruit bouquets, chocolate covered fruit, smoothies, fruit salads, baked goods. Find out what franchise is right for you. Take the Quiz. Jump to Franchising Overview. Take our free franchise matching quiz Complete our short quiz to pinpoint your perfect franchise.

Take our free franchise matching quiz. Company Overview. But after seven years as a florist, he came up with a new idea--bouquets you can eat. He opened the first Edible Arrangements store in , creating, selling and delivering bouquets of fresh fruit sculpted to look like flowers. About Edible. Industry Food. Founded Parent Company Edible Brands.

Leadership Cheikh Mboup, President. Franchising Overview. Franchising Since 21 years. Franchisor Information. Corporate Address Hammond Dr. Definition: The initial fee paid to a franchisor to join their system What you need to know: Found in Item 5 of the FDD, this may be a flat fee, or may vary based on territory size, experience, or other factors.

Definition: The total amount necessary to begin operation of the franchise What you need to know: The initial investment includes the franchise fee, along with other startup expenses such as real estate, equipment, supplies, business licenses, and working capital. Definition: The minimum net worth you must have in order to qualify to become a franchisee of this company What you need to know: Net worth is the value of a person's assets minus liabilities.

Ad Royalty Fee 3. Term of Agreement 10 years. Is franchise term renewable? Financing Options Some franchisors offer in-house financing, while others have relationships with third-party financing sources to which they refer qualified franchisees.

Third Party Financing Edible has relationships with third-party sources which offer financing to cover the following: startup costs, equipment, inventory.

On-The-Job Training 45 hours. Classroom Training 41 hours. Ongoing Support Purchasing Co-ops. Grand Opening.