The Ministry of Sustainability and the Environment $($MSE$)$ stated that $$Food waste is one of

the biggest waste streams in Singapore and the amount of food waste generated has grown by

around $20\%$ over the last $10$ years. In $2019,$ Singapore generated around $744$ million kg of food

waste. That is equivalent to $2$ bowls of rice per person per day, or around $51,000$ double decker

buses.$($MSE$,2023$ It added that, $$Food waste makes up about half of the average $1\mathrm{.}5$kg of

waste disposed of by each household in Singapore daily. Of which, more than half of household

food waste can be prevented, with rice, noodles and bread being the most commonly wasted

food items.$($MSE$,2023)($see $$Towards Zero Waste$).$

With this in mind, you and your friend, who are both final year students in SUSS, decide to

establish a business focusing on reducing food waste on expiring and expired foodstuff, such

as processed and pre$-$packaged foodstuff, and canned foodstuff; however, perishables such as

vegetables and fruits are excluded for practical reasons. Both of you believe that against the

backdrop of high inflationary pressures, some consumers may consider buying and consuming

foodstuff that may be closed to expired date $($e$.$g$.,$ buying canned food that is $2$ months prior to

the marked $$Best Before Date$).$

The initial business idea is to set up various collection points in the HDB neighbourhood

markets and shopping centres where there is high consumer footfall. At the collection points,

$$sellers$$ will drop off their recently expired and soon to be expired packaged and canned food,

which will then be assessed before being paid a predetermined amount by cash or supermarket

shopping vouchers. Long expired foodstuff $($e$.$g$.,$ more than $3$ months$)$ or badly damaged

foodstuff will be rejected for reasons of hygiene and food safety. The foodstuff collected will

BUS$357$ Tutor$-$Marked Assignment

SINGAPORE UNIVERSITY OF SOCIAL SCIENCES $($SUSS$)$ Page $5$ of $7$

be brought back to a central warehouse for sorting, coding, pricing and uploading to a cloudbased inventory management system, which will be integrated to an e$-$commerce website.

The general public will be able to shop and buy these competitively priced $$soon$-$to$-$beexpired$$ foodstuffs by visiting the business$$ e$-$commerce website, pay and arrange for delivery

as in any online grocery$-$shopping website would provide.

Each of you will commit $$15,000$ as seed capital to set up the business, but without a proven

track record and business experience, obtaining bank loans and equity financing to fund your

business would not be possible during the initial start$-$up phase. Therefore, given that this is a

relatively new idea and that both of you are inexperienced in running a distribution business,

both of you decide to appraise and test the business idea using a Validation Board before

plunging into the new venture. After all, both of you want to make sure that the business idea

is viable before committing time and money into it$.$