Chloe's take-away business venture

Chloe is planning to open a cafe business in Melbourne, which will sell healthy burgers prepared with fresh, local ingredients. These will come in two sizes: regular and large, and each order will be served with chips and a drink. The business will be open 4pm-8pm, 7 days a week, with all orders being filled and served on a drive-through basis

Chloe has two options:

1. to buy an existing business, or;
2. open a new one.

If she goes with the first option, she envisages financing the purchase cost ($180,000) with a bank loan. The furniture and kitchen equipment will need to be replaced at 5-yearly intervals. If she goes with this first option, sales for the first quarter are expected to be:

	Regular	Large	Total
Sales (unit)	19,000	15,500	34,500

The sales growth is expected to be 5% per quarter.

If Chloe goes with the second option, she will buy standard furniture and fittings at a cost of $25,000. She estimates that these will need to be replaced every 10 years. She also plans to purchase kitchen equipment, at $100,000, to be financed with a bank overdraft. This equipment will also need to be replaced at 10-year intervals. With this option, Chloe has been advised that sales will be 20% lower than with the first option in the first year only. The business will also need a website, and advertising space in the local newspaper.

Irrespective of the option she finally chooses, Chloe anticipates that sales will increase by 5% per year. She plans to hire 4 part-time staff, so that on any given day, two will be available to cook and fill orders. These will be paid an hourly rate, while Chloe, as manager, will draw a monthly wage of $3,000. She will also employ a cleaner, who will be paid $1,000 a month. The building, which will have no seating capacity, will be leased from a local real-estate company. Chloe aims to make an annual profit, before tax, of not less than $60,000.

Chloe is concerned with ethics, social responsibility and sustainability and would like to ensure that her business is ethical and sustainable.

She has now approached you, a highly capable and reputable team of management and cost accountants based in Melbourne. Your team was chosen because of its excellent reputation, and extensive knowledge of local council regulations. Chloe asks you to research the financial viability of the proposed project.

You are required to:

1. Determine, for both options, the breakeven point, in dollars and units, for the expected sales mix
2. Calculate the Payback Period and Net Present Value for Chloes investment options.
3. Based on the annual profit for years 1, 2 and 3 for the best option, decide which of the hotdogs should be promoted more aggressively than the others to achieve the target profit.
4. In your report, explain first whether you should use Traditional Costing System or Activity-Based Costing?
5. In your report, advise Chloe, on the basis of your calculations for points 1, 2 and 3 above, whether she should buy an existing cafe or establish a new one;
6. Advise Chloe, in the written business report, whether she could maximise profitability by changing sale prices or the mix of existing sales, or both.
7. Identify and analyse any social responsibility issues related to a burger business like this (e.g., water contamination, power usage, social outcomes such as obesity etc), and recommend some potential solutions.

(Please answer in detail)