anikee's Blog

Hey Meg,

How long will it be until your new pricelist is up on your site? If you could send me just a list of your products I'll try not to double up where I can avoid it.

Thanks again to Stay Human, Aduki & Dilga organics. Great to feel the community spirit.
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Anikee
radicalgrocery.com

The Radical Grocery Store is now set to open in August and I would love to form an alliance with a vegan nutritionist or similar. If you are or know of a nutritionist or naturopath who is vegan (or vegan friendly) please let me know.

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Anikee Mallis
The Radical Grocery Store
anikee@radicalgrocery.com
www.radicalgrocery.com

The meat eaters didn't like the name so I held off the site until I was sure I wanted to commit to "the radical grocery store". The website is now under construction and will be online by the end of this month. Everythings on track for an August opening and we even have vegan organic fairtrade baked treats lined up.

I was going to start with baked goods simply because I could order them in from someone else and not have to deal with the preparation and the licences involved with it. I think you will be suprised how quickly you can develop your idea with the cert IV course in July and brain storming with others. If you're really enthusiastic and have the money theres no reason to wait over a year particularly if you qualify for NEIS then (only 25% of NEIS business fail which is a big drop from 90%). I guess if you start online or at markets, by the time you have a store you'll be ready to include everything you want in it. After doing my planning I decided to start the way I am and slowly work up to my full vision of the business. If you want to start online check out the cruelty free shop at crueltyfreeshop.com.au This was just voted Australian Vegan Business of the year by Aduki. If you wanted to start at markets I found a website once for a vegan grocery stall at the CERES market in Brunswick but I can't find the site now and I haven't been to the market to check it out yet. But if your up this end of town on a Wednesday or Saturday (9am-2pm) check it out.

I have picture of them but I can't seem to be able to up load it so google "smoothie peddler" to see what they do.

Cheers

There is currently a business that does a similar thing at festivals. I’ve only ever seen them in Victoria though. They have several stationary bicycles with blenders attached to the handle bars and they power the blender by pedalling. I’ve seen them at falls festival, the sustainable living festival and apparently they do the markets in apollo bay. I think they’re called the smoothie peddler. It’s a lot of fun and it would definitely go down well at the beach. I did some google hunting and their email is smoothie_peddler@hotmail.com if you wanted to contact them for more information

Hey Jo,
The reason I'm not starting the cafe myself in the short term is because you are much more likely to fail in business if you don't have experience in the industry. The amount of cafes and restaurants on Sydney road and near by on Lygon street means it will be very difficult to compete with out experience and an exceptional menu to get the omnivores in and returning too. I was thinking of leaving the meals to the vegan lentil as anything near by and opening a small cafe with just drinks and baked goods once I can afford to hire staff with greater hospitality experience.
What industry are you working in now? I would definately recommend getting a job in a health food store or an organic grocery and a cafe, even if only for a year to give your business the best chance possible.
One of the best things about NEIS is that at the end of the training your business plan is assessed by a pannel before you can recieve the funding and start your business so you know before you invest your soul and all your money, if your business is likely to succeed.
I'd keep your job and build up your experience and your business plan and not jump right in full time until you qualify for NEIS.
Let me know if you need any help researching and soon I'll be able to tell you what works and what doesn't work.

Hopefully this link will work
http://www.surveymonkey.com/s.aspx?sm=sMIbe_2bMgVII9WBIVdInVzQ_3d_3d

(I can only collect a limited number of responses per survey so please only complete this one if you live/work/study in Melbourne)

There are already a few online vegan stores but I don’t like shopping online and have been wanting a physical store to exist for quite a while so that’s why I'm jumping in head first. Also I'm young, full of passion and enthusiasm and not yet ready to grow up and put my savings towards a home loan deposit.

If you want to develop your business ideas further I'd definitely recommend doing part one of the cert IV in Business (small business management). I did it through Kangan Batman TAFE two nights a week but other providers may be just as good, and you will complete the entire certificate if you do NEIS.

As for getting onto NEIS I'm much the same as rocket. I quit uni (technically I was banned) then applied for new start the next day.

Basically The Radical Grocery Store aims to be 100% ethical (apparently this makes it a radical business) and so will not exploit anyone or anything in anyway. This includes the customer, the farmers, non-human animals and the environment. The store will stock the largest range of vegan specialty products, the largest range of fairtrade and no sweat products and no un fairtrade products (I am still debating whether to also stock local organic when fairtrade is available), certified organic local fresh produce and grocery items and a range of recycled and reusable products (I’m also interested in other qualities such as packaging, ethics of parent companies etc). The store will eventually be a one-stop-shop for vegans and other ethically minded consumers and include a small café and activist space. I also hope that the store can act as a kind of vegan show room to introduce more people to veganism.

Jo - if you have any hospitality experience or want to get some, I also have a vague vision of a vegan, organic, fairtrade cafe with vegan cheese cake, cup cakes and every kind of tea, throw in Rocket’s vegan cooking classes and rent some kitchen space/time to other vegan entrepreneurs (the pastry chefs in my TAFE course thought a business which just rents kitchen space would be an awesome idea and much needed). I was thinking of eventually opening something like this as part of the long term vision of my store but I'd much prefer if someone else started it or something similar sooner, either in my store or close by because I don’t know Jack about hospitality.

Rico - Glad you like the name, a lot of debate went into it over the last few months. When the world is ready for it, it may one day change to 'The Radical Vegan Grocery'.

Sorry that was such a long post. I’d love some more feed back on my plans and if you have time, below is a link to one of my surveys. Cheers

Click Here to take survey

Hey Jo,
I'm planning on opening a store very similar to the one you're thinking of, although due to my lack of hospitality experience the cafe part wont be up and running for at least a year (although I'm trying to track down vegan cupcakes to stock for Noah if anyone reading this can help me). I'm in the process of applying for the NEIS program Rocket mentioned, if successful, my store will be opening in August. I'm planning to open the store in Brunswick close to the Vegan Lentil as Anything (pending the results of my surveys) although I think there is equal demand (and possibly more money) in the St Kilda area. If you're still only thinking and not ready to jump right in, I would love to share ideas and opinions with you to help get my store up and running and then when you're ready we could work together (with much more Melbourne vegan business experience) to start your vegan business.
If you want to know more about my idea let me know and if anyone else reading wants to throw me some requests I'm all ears.

Anikee
The Radical Grocery Store