The year 2020 will be another year that humanity will never forget and has made the history of another year of a pandemic. This pandemic has caused many businesses to fight for survival and if they don't, they will be forced to close.
Well, in the end, fighting for survival is not enough to stay afloat. We must have the mindset to grow with the pandemic and leverage with available tools to reach out to more people so we can generate daily cash flow. We cannot use yesterday's method to do biz when the pandemic is around. We must understand the market and react to it with a good plan or else, the effort you put in will be put to waste because you will end up fighting in the wrong ring.
Besides that, in Green Hero, things were tough too. The pandemic is a year of blessing for the environment because food waste has been cut down by 60%. The reason for that is as below
1) There were no events that were held with food in 2020
2) No buffet were conducted or allowed in 2020
3) Food was only made to order.
4) Lesser food stocks are produced to put on the shelf.
This is good news for the environment but what about Green Hero? We rely 100% on edible food surplus to prevent food waste. Ever since the pandemic happens, we only had about 40% of supplies to deal with each day, and not every day the numbers will be stagnant. Hence, the team in Green Hero and I decided to pivot so we can also grow with the pandemic for the betterment of the business.
How did we Pivot? In the first week of the MCO in 2020, we saw a spike in food delivery service. We saw so many people ordered and the food riders on the road surged so much than any other previous years. This gave us an idea and also a hope to also talk with our merchants if we could also introduce the made to order business too in a biodegradable food packaging or less plastic. They agreed to do business with us and best of all we don't take 35% from our merchants. Green Hero as well provide our merchants free biodegradable food box for our delivery service. The mark-up in Green Hero happens once unlike those food delivery platforms out there who eat so much into the restaurant margins and also customer money too. We didn't want to be like them and wanted to be different.
Moreover, as we entered the 2nd week of MCO, we began the made-to-order food. The spiked in our food delivery happened from day to day due to sushi and ice cream! It was crazy and we were happy to see so many people supported us . This gave us the confidence that we can survive and grow in the market too.
A month later, in April 2020, we heard a farm in Cameron Highland needed help. We immediately reached out and told them we have the end consumer on our end. We just need their help to pack in boxes with minimum or no plastic. Once they are ok with it, we also agreed to meet us at a specific point for Green Hero to deliver to our customers. This as well expanded our wings to also tap into the 2nd grade and fresh produce vegetables with minimum or no plastic. It was then our third revenue stream was born.
Furthermore, the fourth revenue stream happened in December 2020. It was the Green Mobile Store ( G.M.S) that allowed us to tap into the refill and reuse market. The refill and reuse business is a biz model that allowed us to reduce waste such as refilling milk in glass bottles for our customers. Once our customers drank the milk finished, we will come again the following week with a new batch of milk. The previous bottled will be given back to us to be washed and sterilized. This applies to the flour too.
Lastly, in the late of 2020, our main competitor staff shared a piece of news that we didn't expect. Sadly, they didn't manage to innovate or react fast enough to cope up with the pandemic. They had so much funding and even up to a million in ringgits. The person told us that they can no longer operate due to the toughness of the market and also the acceptability of Malaysian towards food close to expiry. One of their mistakes they told me was that , they spent so much of their funds to rescue food just to please merchants and later on sell them at a cheaper price but still at loss. . This is not what we do in Green Hero. In Green Hero, we wanted two sides to also win. We will only take stocks once there is an order. If there is none, we will tap to our charitable NGOs partners to seek their response if they want some food. If they said 'Yes', we will send it over to them.
So the question I should ask myself, is Green Hero lucky that we weren't funded in the early days but we had to find ways to make money for the business in the toughest way? I guess that there are some of us who just spend investors' money without thinking twice or thrice if it is reasonable to do so? Anyways, that is up to the core team to decide but on our end, we will be brought up in a very tough environment. This tough environment we are in today teaches us many lessons up to date. I believe there is more to be learned by Green Hero and the team.
Kudos! A big THANK YOU to the team and also to the Green Hero community for your endless love and support in what we do. Today we have as below
1) Green Hero Happy Hour
2) Green Service ( Made to order food in biodegradable food box)
3) Green Veggie
4) Green Mobile Store
Those are made possible because there is a demand from our community and it will continue to grow because green is the new way of doing a business <3 and it will be a practice many businesses will follow suits in decades to come. So start now to be the first wave.
By the way, there is also a pre-loved store you can support a special needs boy at Island Plaza, LG just right in front of cold storage.
Together, let's strive for a greener future with you.