Analytical Synthesis
Ceres Food is an online grocery shop working in Victoria, which emphasises sustainable and environmental practices of supplying and selling food. Social entrepreneurship is a business approach that emphasises metrics such as return to society, apart from the traditional profits and return of investment. Through their work, social enterprises address a specific issue that affects society by combining the framework of business, governance, and social responsibility. The main characteristic of Ceres Food is the fact that this store has a strict policy of supplying organic produce they sell in their online shop. This paper aims to evaluate and analyse Ceres Food and discuss the opportunities and risks that the company can face.
Ceres Food works in the sector of selling and delivering organic food, with social emphasis on helping the community. Ceres Food grows some of its items, while others are purchased from farmers or trusted companies that focus on social responsibility (Our buying policy, n.d). The idea is that the customers can get access to high-quality products supplied by local farmers and packaged using boxed and compostable bags. Ceres Food’s identity can be examined through its mission and vision statements, according to which this business aims “to do good at every step along the food supply chain” (About us, n.d., para. 1).
The history of this enterprise began when the employees of Ceres Food organising a weekly co-opt where they shared food with others, and within several years, the company became a food supplier for ten neighbourhoods hosting co-opts. Apart from this, Ceres Food received funding from the government, which allowed them to rent a warehouse and establish their online shop, selling organic products to its customers.
Ceres Food highlights the following elements as the focus of its work – organic, low carbon, and social entrepreneurship. One can assume that Ceres Food has a sole trader business structure since the owner of Fair Food, the company that preceded Ceres food, has full ownership of Ceres Food (Page, 2018). Leadership and human resource capabilities appear to the central concern for Ceres. The company employs people seeking asylum, for example, immigrants who recently moved to Australia, and emphasises the fact that they work in cooperation with farmers to support the latter during all seasons (About us, n.d.). Hence, the leadership of Ceres Food appears to be applying the principles of servant leadership by focusing on the needs of their employees.
The main stakeholders of Ceres Food are the suppliers, mainly farmers, since this business use natural products. Also, the employees of Ceres Food are essential stakeholders since the company employs specific hiring practices – focusing on providing jobs to those in need. In addition, because this company grows some of the products it sells, the employees affect the quality of these items and the practices used. The community of Victoria, where Ceres Food operates, is another vital stakeholder since the organisation states that it donates many of its profits to invest in children education in the region (Our buying policy, n.d.).
The approach to economic sustainability is an essential element, and Ceres uses a combination of foods that they grow, farmer’s supplies, and mainstream distributors. The brand and marketing focus of Ceres Food is on the fact that this is a social enterprise, providing organic food, minimum packaging, and employing immigrates. Hence, the main idea behind this social enterprise is to deliver food produced and packaged in accordance with sustainable practices.
Opportunities and Risks
The social aspect of the business is becoming increasingly important in the contemporary environment, and managers have to pay attention to the impact that their organisations have on societies. Although social entrepreneurship is adopted mainly by start-ups, big companies, for example, Coca-Cola, develop corporate social responsibility strategies that aim to reduce emissions from its manufacturing facilities (Melton, Damron & Vernon, 2015). Hence, Ceres Foods’ approach to growing, supplying and selling products appears to leverage the current best practices of business.
There are three main elements that characterise the strategy of Ceres Food – focusing on organic food, using a combination of self-grown, farmers’, and suppliers’ products, and investment in the local community. Firstly, it is necessary to examine the scope of operations that Ceres Foods has. In general, although there are many challenges associated with selling natural products supplied from local farms, the evidence suggests that consumers are becoming more concerned with the quality of the meals they consume (Boston et al., 2019). This includes the types of practices used when growing crops and the location of the supplier. This is an excellent opportunity for growth since one can argue that the market for organic food will be increasing.
Secondly, from a business viewpoint, Ceres Foods minimises its risks since it does not rely on one source for all of its suppliers. This diversity is beneficial for the customers as well since they can purchase items they like together with organic products. Since farming can be subjected to issue such as natural disasters, which affects the crops, this issue can result in having nothing to sell to the consumers.
Finally, the fact that Ceres Foods aims to make a positive impact on its community by investing in education, hosting events, and employing immigrants or people seeking asylum is the core value that characterises this business as social. According to Beugré (2017), the main element of social entrepreneurship is a goal of addressing a specific social mission, in the case of Ceres Foods, this is the welling of people living in their community.
This creates branding and marketing opportunities for the organisation since the brand creates a relationship with the customers. This is especially beneficial considering the fact that Ceres Foods’ main business characteristic is the delivery of products, which is a risk since the area that they can supply items to is limited. However, by focusing on the community, this brand is able to mitigate this risk and ensure that people in the area are aware of the social purpose that this company has.
The main risk is that Ceres Food’s growth is limited by its current model. As was mentioned, the identity of this brand is connected to the local neighbourhoods where it operates, meaning that Ceres would have to invest in social campaigns outside the current communities if it decided to grow. In addition, the cooperation with local farmers results in different quality and types of agricultural products that Ceres Food receives.
This can also be an issue in case the organisation decides to grow since it will be unable to offer a unified set of items to all of its consumers. Overall, Ceres Food has many opportunities since the company operates in the industry of organic food that should continue to grow in the following years.
Reference List
About us (n.d.) Web.
Beugré, C. (2017) Social entrepreneurship: managing the creation of social value. New York, Routledge.
Boston, I. et al. (2019) ‘An integrated approach to current trends in organic food in the EU,’ Foods, 8(144), pp. 1-17.
Melton, A., Damron, T. and Vernon, J. (2015) A marketing strategy from corporate social responsibility: lessons from Unilever and Coca-Cola enterprises. Web.
Our buying policy (n.d.) Web.
Our team & our story (n.d.) Web.
Page, A. (2018) Types of business structures in Australia . Web.