Professional Scenarios 1. Saban is a top performing.docx

Professional Scenarios
1. Saban is a top performing industrial equipment salesperson
for D2D. After three years of working
with his best client, he receives a text message from Pat (his
direct manager) assigning him to a
completely different account.
Pat has received complaints that Saban gets all of the good
clients and is not a “team player.”
Saban responds to the message and asks for a meeting with Pat
to discuss this change. Pat responds
with another text message that reads: “Decision final. Everyone
needs to get a chance to work with the
best accounts so it is fair. Come by the office and pick up your
new files.”
Moments later, Saban sends a text message to Karen, his
regional manager and Pat’s boss. It simply
reads, “We need to talk.”
2. Amber, Savannah, and Stephen work for Knowledge, Inc. (a
consulting company). While on a
conference call with Tim Rice Photography (an established
client), the group discusses potential
problems with a marketing campaign. Tim Rice, lead
photographer and owner of Tim Rice
Photography, is insistent the marketing is working and changes
are not needed.
Amber reaches over to put Tim on “Mute” but accidently pushes
a different button. She immediately
says to Savannah and Stephen that the marketing campaign is
not working and that “…Tim should

stick to taking pretty pictures.”
Tim responds, “You know I can hear you, right?”
3. James shows up to work approximately five minutes late this
morning, walks silently (but quickly)
down the hallway and begins to punch in at the time clock
located by the front desk.
Sarah, the front desk manager, says, "Good morning, James,"
but James ignores her, punches in, and
heads into the shop to his workplace. Sarah rolls her eyes,
picks up the phone, and dials the on-duty
manager to alert her that James just arrived and should be
reaching his desk any moment.
4. Paul works for the website division of SuperMega retail
company. He receives an email late Friday
afternoon that explains a new computer will launch at the end of
next June and it will be in high demand
with limited stock. Also contained in the three-page-message is
that customers will be able to preorder
the item 30 days before launch according to the production
company. Paul is asked to create a landing
page for consumers who are interested in learning more about
the product.
By mistake, Paul sets up a preorder page for the product that
afternoon (well in advance of the
company authorized period) and late Friday evening consumers
begin to preorder the product. Sharon,
Vice President of Product Sales at SuperMega, learns of the
error Saturday morning and calls Paul to
arrange a meeting first thing Monday morning. Sharon explains
to Paul on the phone that the company
intends on canceling all of the preorders and Paul responds that
the company should honor the

preorders because it was not a consumer error. After a heated
exchange, Paul hangs up on Sharon
when she insists that the preorders will be canceled because of
Paul’s error.
Sustainability:
INTRODUCTION: outline the purpose and structure of the
presentation and explain the main aspects of stakeholder theory
(e.g. describe what is a stakeholder and why the company needs
to care about properly identifying and managing/engaging with
its stakeholders).
THE SUSTAINABILITY ISSUE & ETHICAL
DILEMMA: Introduce the single sustainability issue that you
will be focussing on and discuss the ethical dilemma faced by
the company with respect to this issue and the potential
impact(s) on stakeholder generally.
STAKEHOLDER ENGAGEMENT: Use your preferred
stakeholder model(s) to identify and analyse the
company’s main stakeholders with respect to your specific
sustainability issue and make recommendations about engaging
with these stakeholders with respect to the particular
sustainability issue you have identified.
CONCLUSION: Recap the main points of your presentation
being careful not to just list what you did but rather focussing
on what it means for the company and its approach to dealing
with its stakeholders. (some recommendations)
In details:
1. Using the case study materials provided, identify a single

sustainability issue that the company is facing and describe the
key sustainability dimensions of the issue and the ethical
dilemma it presents the organisation. The sustainability issue
may be one that company is addressing well or one where
improvement may be required.
2. Identify the relevant stakeholders for the company for this
sustainability issue. Using an appropriate model(s) justify this
selection and identify the stakeholders that you think are most
important to engage with on this sustainability issue (key
stakeholders). Explain how you selected these stakeholders and
critique the strengths and limitations of this approach.
3. Analyse how the organisation currently manages these
stakeholders with respect to this sustainability issue and the
potential problems and/or opportunities created by this
approach. Building on the findings of this stakeholder analysis,
identify and justify strategies for managing and ethically
engaging these stakeholders around the sustainability issue.
Explain the model(s) used to identify the strategies and how
they respond to the ethical dimensions of stakeholder
management.
I need to do power point 7 slides about the case study with
speaking notes
Slide1: introduction (brief explanation of the case), outline the
purpose and structure of the presentation
Slide2: Introduce the single sustainability issue that you will be
focussing on and discuss the ethical dilemma faced by the
company with respect to this issue and the potential impact(s)
on stakeholder generally.
Slide3 and 4: identify all stakeholders, then use 2 appropriate
model(s) justify this selection and identify the stakeholders that
you think are most important to engage with on this
sustainability issue (key stakeholders). Explain how you
selected these stakeholders and critique the strengths and
limitations of this approach.

Analyse how the organization currently manages these
stakeholders with respect to this sustainability issue and the
potential problems and/or opportunities created by this
approach. Building on the findings of this stakeholder analysis,
identify and justify strategies for managing and ethically
engaging these stakeholders around the sustainability issue.
Explain the model(s) used to identify the strategies and how
they respond to the ethical dimensions of stakeholder
management.
Slide6: CONCLUSION: Recap the main points of your
presentation being careful not to just list what you did but
rather focussing on what it means for the company and its
approach to dealing with its stakeholders. (some
recommendations)
Slide7: REFERENCE 3 references using APA style
Choose 2 of three stakeholders’ models:
oikos free case collection
oikos.world/cases
2nd Prize

Coming to Fruition: Fresh Truck Aims
to Increase Food Access in Boston
Nardia Haigh, Anya Weber & Jennie Msall
(University of Massachusetts Boston)
Free Online Copy
This is a free online copy. This work is licensed under the
Creative Commons
Attribution-NoDerivs 3.0 Unported License. To view a copy of
this license, visit
http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nd/3.0/
This case is accompanied by a teaching note, available to
faculty only. Please send your
request to [email protected] The authors are thankful for any
feedback and
suggestions to further develop this case. Please contact
[email protected]
Copyright © 2017 by the authors. This case was prepared as a
basis for class discussion
rather than to illustrate the effective or ineffective handling of
an administrative situation.
The authors would like to thank oikos, Carlos Vargas and
reviewers for their facilitation and
feedback, Josh Trautwein for sharing his experiences in
multiple interviews and emails,
UMass social enterprise students for work on first drafts,
Professor Ed Carberry in whose

classes we tested the case, and students of those classes for
their responses to the case.
oikos Case Writing Competition 2017
Social Entrepreneurship Track
oikos case collection
2
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3

Coming to Fruition: Fresh Truck Aims to
Increase Food Access in Boston
Abstract
Founded in 2013 in Boston, Massachusetts, Fresh Truck is a
mobile fresh produce market
focused on increasing access to fresh produce and nutrition
education in Boston’s low-income
neighborhoods. Fresh Truck is a non-profit social enterprise that
earns revenue through the
sale of fresh produce in various Boston neighborhoods. It has
become a key part of Boston’s
food access ecosystem, which includes health care centers, the
City of Boston, and other non-
profit organizations. To date, Fresh Truck has attracted funding
through a business plan
competition, a Kickstarter campaign and grants that have helped
to launch two trucks serving
its mission. However, to expand, Fresh Truck faces a number of
key management, logistical
and operational challenges that affect its economic
sustainability and thus its mission. These
challenges relate to customer acquisition and retention, finding

time to grow, inventory
control, parking issues, and measuring impact. Josh Trautwein,
co-founder and executive
director of Fresh Truck, must make decisions to navigate these
challenges and continue daily
operations as he develops and executes a strategy for growing
the enterprise and helping to
solve food access issues in Boston. What should Josh do to
chart a course through these
challenges so that Fresh Truck can earn revenue and meet its
social mission?
4
Introduction
In October 2015, Josh Trautwein, the co-founder and executive
director of Fresh
Truck, was excited to launch the next phase of his mobile fresh
produce enterprise. With Blue
Cross Blue Shield of Massachusetts as a new community impact

partner, New England
Patriots player Nate Solder as a new board member, and the
rollout of a second fresh produce
truck, Josh had many reasons to be excited. These developments
promised to help Fresh
Truck strengthen its finances, streamline its operations, and
progress toward its mission of
increasing access to healthy foods and providing nutrition
education in low-income
neighborhoods.1 However, with lower-than-desired customer
traffic and spending, the need
for more marketing and community engagement efforts, and an
overall need for a business
model that is economically sustainable, questions still remained.
How can Fresh Truck
become more economically sustainable, and how can it scale up
successfully?
The Issue: FoodAccess, Diet and Disease
Many residents in low-income communities struggle to access
healthy, affordable
food. Instead of supermarkets and grocery stores, these
communities may only have fast food
restaurants or convenience stores nearby, which offer little fresh
produce and generally fewer

healthy options. Diets that rely on food from convenience stores
are often higher in sugar and
fat, and contribute to obesity and other diet-related diseases,
such as diabetes. Research has
found there is “a 2.5 times higher risk of diabetes in food-
insecure households.”2
Many low-income communities are food deserts, which are
defined by the American
Nutrition Association (ANA) as “parts of [a] country vapid of
fresh fruit, vegetables, and
other healthful whole foods.” Food deserts occur both in urban
neighborhoods and in rural
towns, and people in these areas have “low access” to foods that
are fresh, healthy, and
affordable.3 Low-access communities are technically defined as
those with 500 people or 33%
of its census residents living more than one mile from a grocery
store.4 According to the
United States Department of Agriculture, there are 23.5 million
Americans living in food
deserts;5 however, even this substantial figure may
underrepresent the number of people who
have difficulty accessing healthy food due to living without a
car (which may make grocery

shopping for a family more difficult), and those living in areas
not well served by public
transportation.
In Massachusetts, there are fewer supermarkets per capita than
almost any other
state, and according to The Food Trust, Boston has “30 percent
fewer per capita
supermarkets compared to national averages.”6 Exhibit 1 shows
income levels in different
Boston neighborhoods and plots grocery stores and corner stores
throughout the city,
5
highlighting how lower-income communities have fewer grocery
stores and more
convenience stores.
This uneven distribution of supermarkets leaves a
disproportionate number of low-
income Massachusetts residents without access to affordable
nutritious food, forcing them

either to pay higher prices for lower-quality food or to travel
longer distances than residents
in higher-income areas to purchase the food they need. Exhibit
2 shows communities in
Massachusetts that are low-income and have low access to
grocery stores, and color-codes
these communities by distance to the nearest grocery store.
Many of these communities are
between half a mile and 10 miles from a grocery store, leaving
community residents more
likely to suffer from diet-related health problems.
Currently, one third of school children in Massachusetts are
overweight or obese by
the time they reach first grade, and 58% of all Massachusetts
residents are overweight or
obese.7 This comes at a cost to taxpayers, since Massachusetts
spends an estimated $1.8
billion each year to treat obesity-related illness.7
The Entrepreneurial Force behind Fresh Truck:
Josh Trautwein
In 2012, before becoming Fresh Truck’s co-founder, Josh
Trautwein worked as a
health educator at the Charlestown Community Health Center,

where he taught families
about nutrition and healthy eating habits. Charlestown is an
economically diverse Boston
neighborhood with a significant portion of the population living
below the poverty line.
Through this work, Josh learned that food and nutrition literacy
was a challenge for many
families who did not know how to prepare healthy meals.
Families told him that “it was
difficult to shop for fresh fruits and vegetables because they
didn’t live in close proximity to a
supermarket.”8 As Exhibit 3 shows, this feedback from
Charlestown families has become a
key part of the Fresh Truck story.
As a former sociology major, Josh understood the challenges
that families living in
poverty face accessing food, due to issues with transportation,
costs, and nutrition
knowledge. Josh had also grown up in a working class, single-
parent household, and low
nutritional literacy meant that his family did not always eat
especially healthy foods. Working
in Charlestown reinforced for him that healthy food access is
more difficult when busy

parents (sometimes working multiple jobs) do not have time to
travel to other parts of town
to buy fresh produce.
At the time that he worked at the Charlestown Community
Health Center, Josh was
also involved in playing and teaching soccer at a local level,
and this shaped his vision for
creating social change. During college, Josh had also founded
Soccer1, a non-profit enterprise
6
that supports youth sports internationally. Josh learned from
many mentors through starting
Soccer1, and honed his entrepreneurial skills. After consistently
hearing about food access
issues in Charlestown, reflecting on his own childhood
experience, and knowing that he had
the skills to be successful, Josh started Fresh Truck: a mobile
marketplace that would bring
fresh produce and food education to Boston’s low-income

communities.
The Fresh Truck Concept and its Beginnings
Josh Trautwein’s mobile marketplace solution entailed
converting an old school bus
into a mobile market that he could drive to low-income
communities to sell affordable, fresh
produce. The modified school bus would also serve as a center
for nutrition education that
would provide customers with information about the benefits of
healthy food, and teach them
how to cook quick, easy meals with fresh ingredients.
Josh aimed to provide affordable fresh produce to low-income
families through a
social enterprise using a subsidization model, where higher-
volume stops in busier parts of
Boston, such as a local university, would cover the costs of
lower-volume stops in less
populated neighborhoods, with prices remaining consistent for
everyone. Exhibit 4 shows the
starting plan of neighborhoods that Fresh Truck targetted for
food sales and nutrition
education.
Fresh Truck is one of a growing number of enterprises known as

social enterprises
(also known as hybrid organizations) that design their business
model specifically to address
a particular social issue. Social entrepreneurs such as Josh
Trautwein are distinctive in their
practice of designing and establishing an enterprise specifically
to solve a vexing social
problem while striving to earn revenue to support the mission.
Social enterprises earn
revenue and attract funding, investment and/or working capital
in ways that may
traditionally be associated with non-profit or for-profit
enterprises (or both). They can be
legally registered as for-profit or as non-profit, and in some
instances have multiple for-profit
and/or non-profit entities.9 It is also common for social
enterprises to shift between for-profit
and non-profit structures while establishing the best legal
configuration for the enterprise
and its mission.9
Fresh Truck was founded in 2013 as a Massachusetts registered
Benefit Corporation
that would reinvest any profits back into the company. After
winning $5000 in seed funding

through a business plan competition held by Boston Rising,10
Josh began the process of
incorporating Fresh Truck as a 501(c)3 non-profit, which has
since been finalized.
7
Other Actors in Boston’s FoodAccess Ecosystem
Fresh Truck is not alone in wanting to provide healthy,
affordable food for Boston’s
low-income residents. Other non-profits, for-profits, and
government agencies often work in
collaboration toward the same goal. Two such programs share
significant similarities with
Fresh Truck.
First is a combination of Boston’s farmers markets and Boston
Bounty Bucks. Like
Fresh Truck, farmers markets appear in various neighborhoods
for a limited time each week.
In 2008, The Food Project (a local non-profit) established

Boston Bounty Bucks in
partnership with the City of Boston.11 Currently run by the City
of Boston’s Office of Food
Initiatives, Boston Bounty Bucks provides EBT (Electronic
Benefits Transfer) terminals at
local farmers markets, and matches SNAP purchases (the
Federal Government’s
Supplemental Nutrition Assistance Program) up to $10. Boston
Bounty Bucks focuses on
seasonal and local produce, and many of Boston’s 28 farmers
markets now accept EBT cards
because of this program. In 2014, Boston residents spent
$125,000 at farmers markets using
SNAP and Boston Bounty Bucks, and research has found that
approximately 90% of Boston
Bounty Bucks are spent on fresh produce.12
Another non-profit, Fair Foods, has also been operating a
produce truck in Boston’s
low-income neighborhoods since 1988. It receives and ships
over 10,000 pounds of “rescued
food” each day, which is “perfectly good surplus produce from
industrial suppliers who can
no longer use it.”13 Fair Foods’ signature program provides
large bags of mixed fresh produce

for a suggested donation of two dollars. Bag contents depend on
available produce on any
given day, and customers do not choose what they receive. Fair
Foods operates five days a
week, distributing food at over 20 sites around Boston,
including churches, schools, public
housing centers, and senior centers.13
Funding and Start-up
In February 2013, Josh entered this food ecosystem when he
secured over $32,000 of
start-up funding through a Kickstarter crowdfunding campaign,1
which enabled Fresh Truck
to buy an old school bus and convert it to a mobile fresh
produce market. Inspired by Fresh
Truck’s successful Kickstarter campaign, Building Restoration
Services (BRS), a Boston-
based specialty contractor, offered to restore Fresh Truck’s first
mobile marketplace free of
charge. Josh anticipated challenges getting permits for the truck
from the City of Boston’s
Inspectional Services Department (ISD), and met with ISD
representatives to lay out his

1 See Fresh Truck’s Kickstarter campaign video at
https://www.kickstarter.com/projects/1530126668/fresh-truck-
mobile-farmers-
market/description.
8
plans and get their feedback on how to restore and fit the truck
to code. Since BRS also had
experience working with ISD, they were able to build a truck
that passed ISD regulations with
relative ease. BRS’s work entailed removing the seats,
installing produce racks, installing
extra stairs so customers could enter easily from the front of the
truck and exit through the
back, setting up a checkout station, and painting the truck with
Fresh Truck’s logo and other
signage (see Exhibit 5).
Around the same time, Josh was invited to talk at TEDx Boston

about structural
issues relating to food access and nutrition. The talk was
received enthusiastically2 and
helped to continue building momentum around the enterprise.
In July 2013, Fresh Truck launched a pilot “Weekly Market
Program”. Through
buying wholesale, Fresh Truck was able to offer fresh produce
at prices equal to or below
those of large supermarket chains. The pilot program continued
through October 2013 in the
neighborhoods of Dorchester, Mattapan, Roxbury, and
Charlestown.14 Throughout 2014,
Fresh Truck focused on building relationships with local
healthcare organizations such as
Boston Medical Center, Brigham and Women’s Hospital, and
Boston Children’s Hospital,
which are invaluable for community outreach to potential
customers. That same year, Fresh
Truck also hosted a series of pop-up events around the city.
In April 2015, Fresh Truck secured $70,000 in working capital
from Blue Cross Blue
Shield of Massachusetts to fund its operational needs through
2016,14 and in summer of 2015

hired an operations manager.15 Two volunteers—each working
20 hours per week—also
joined the Fresh Truck team, and Josh partnered with a
development consultant to identify
and pursue further funding opportunities.15 In September 2015,
with the new funding, a
growing team, experience gained from its pilot program, and
increasingly robust
partnerships with local healthcare centers, Fresh Truck launched
a five-day Weekly Market
Program in five neighborhoods: Dorchester, Mattapan,
Charlestown, East Boston, and
Brighton.
Fresh Truck’s Daily and Weekly Operations
Each morning, Josh and his team re-stock with produce from a
local wholesale
produce market. Choice of inventory is influenced by scheduled
neighborhood stops that day,
since there are significant cultural and dietary differences
among Boston neighborhoods.
Josh explained that Fresh Truck stocks foods to meet the needs
of each area’s population: “If
we’re going to a Latino neighborhood… we’re going to buy
plantains”.15

2 See the TEDx Boston talk by Josh and his co-founder at
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=99U9EOqLaeU
9
After purchasing wholesale produce, the truck heads to its first
stop of the day. The
Weekly Market Program consists of 3-4 stops daily at locations
such as public housing
complexes, each in a different neighborhood. Each stop takes
approximately two hours. Fresh
Truck serves each location on a regular (once or twice weekly)
basis, stopping in the same
location each time. For instance, on any given Saturday
afternoon, a Fresh Truck sits parked
on a main road near the Charlestown High School.
Once the truck arrives at a stop, the driver opens up the doors

and attaches produce
racks to the outside of the vehicle. Setting up at each stop
throughout the day takes relatively
little time, since, as Josh said, the truck is “pretty agile”.15
Customers can choose produce
from the outside racks and then enter at the front of the truck,
walk through and pick more
produce as they go. They then check out at the cash register set
up in the rear of the truck,
and exit through a door and stairs in the rear.
Repeat customers drop by and buy items, and pedestrians poke
their heads into the
truck, curious about why a refurbished school bus touting fresh
produce is parked in their
neighborhood. Fresh Truck employees strike up informal
conversations with everyone who
boards the truck. Josh frequently hears comments from
customers as they shop, such as “My
kids are just getting into fruits and vegetables.” He uses these
conversations to share simple
nutritional facts and recipes, as well as tips about how to
engage children with healthy eating.
These conversations are also a good opportunity to inform new
customers that Fresh Truck

brings competitively priced fresh produce to them regularly,
which will save them time and
money, since they no longer need to travel outside the
neighborhood to buy it.
To serve its dual social–business goals of improving food
access in Boston’s low-
income neighborhoods and sustaining itself financially, Fresh
Truck also serves the broader
community by stopping in higher-traffic locations throughout
Boston. From 11:00 AM until
2:00 PM, Fresh Truck stops at workplaces, universities, and
health centers, and in the late
afternoon visits commuter locations such as schools and train
stations. These additional
stops help Fresh Truck to increase its revenue and visibility in
the general community. In
total, Fresh Truck allocates approximately 33% of its stops to
higher-traffic locations with
(typically) more affluent customers to generate revenue, which
helps cover the costs of
providing food access to low-income residents.
A Fresh Truck Goal: Growth through
Community Engagement and Food
Education

In addition to sharing nutrition information one-on-one with
customers, Fresh Truck
also increases nutritional awareness (and its customer base) in
the communities it serves
through partnerships with public sector agencies, non-profits,
and grassroots community
organizations that are already working to promote health
literacy. Josh aims to leverage this
10
network, and add to it by targeting community health centers
and larger health care
organizations, social workers, faith leaders, and residential
services managers at Boston
Housing Authority complexes who have the ear and respect of
community members. Since
many potential customers live in low-income housing
developments, “community
champions” such as residential service managers, health center
employees, and social

workers play an important role in Fresh Truck’s growth and
ability to serve its mission.15
One such collaboration is with Boston Redevelopment Housing
Authority in
Charlestown, with which Josh was already familiar through his
work at the Charlestown
Community Health Center, and which Fresh Truck visits
regularly. These types of
partnerships have led to Fresh Truck participating in community
events around Boston, such
as neighborhood block parties, where it provides cooking
demonstrations, tips, and recipes.
Fresh Truck also collaborates with its network of community
health centers and their
dieticians and nutritionists to host educational programming.
These spread the word about
Fresh Truck’s products and services and help Fresh Truck
deliver its food education and
lower-cost fresh produce.
AchievingGrowth: A Second Truck
Shortly after the re-launch of Fresh Truck’s Weekly Market
Program, New England
Patriots player and Fresh Truck board member Nate Solder
suggested that Fresh Truck

consider purchasing a second truck.15 This was a very
appealing prospect, because with one
truck Josh had to either forgo community engagement
opportunities that conflicted with his
regular Weekly Market Program stops, or disrupt regular stops
to attend a community
engagement event. A second truck would enable Fresh Truck to
cover its Weekly Market
Program stops and attend community engagement events
simultaneously, which would be a
significant increase in capacity.
However, the second truck would also increase expenses for
what was still a young
enterprise aiming for (though not yet generating) enough
revenue to support its operations
without donations, grant funding, and other external sources of
capital. Josh chose to move
ahead with a second truck, though not without hesitation.
Challenges for Fresh Truck
As Fresh Truck develops, now with two trucks, Josh and his
crew are managing
several key challenges that affect all aspects of the business and
its mission.

11
Customer Acquisition and Retention
Perhaps the most pressing challenge for Fresh Truck has been
gaining regular
customers in its target communities. Fresh Truck operates a
business model different from
those of supermarkets and farmers markets, and needs a level of
commitment from the
communities it serves. Josh acknowledged this difficulty in
attracting new customers:
“We’re only ever in a neighborhood for maybe a window of two
hours at two
different times during the week. So we’re asking families—the
majority of which are
already on a really tight budget that’s precarious—we’re asking
them to shop inside
of a really narrow window of time, and we’re asking them to
reserve their budget
for the days that we’re there.”15

At this point in its development and to be financially
sustainable, Fresh Truck aims
for approximately 32% of its revenue to come from suburbs
with food access problems (with
the remainder coming from customers in higher-traffic areas),
and for 67% of its weekly
stops to be in suburbs with food access problems. Josh aims for
each customer to spend $10-
$20 per visit.16 To be financially viable at a minimum level
(without expansion of services or
equipment upgrades), Fresh Truck must earn or raise
approximately $138,500–$144,500
annually), and internal documents emphasized that “We should
not start up Fresh Truck
without fufilling this budget. ”16 In fall 2015, funding was
helping to fulfill the budget, but
customer traffic had been lower than desired in almost every
neighborhood, and average
customer spending was short of the $10-$20 per-visit goal. Josh
maintained a positive
outlook, explaining that a large part of Fresh Truck’s strategy
was to “keep showing up and
slowly build a community base,” working his way into
customers’ routines so they would set

aside time and money to shop with Fresh Truck.15
Finding the Timeto Grow
A related challenge surrounds time management and community
engagement, which
is at the heart of Fresh Truck’s mission and a cornerstone of its
marketing and growth.
Grassroots marketing through community outreach is key to
building community recognition
of Fresh Truck and boosting its impact through sales and
education. However, Josh still does
many of the labor-intensive aspects of the business (driving,
purchasing, etc.), working with
limited resources and now two trucks. These demands on his
time mean that many
community partnership and community engagement
opportunities remain untapped, along
with the customer acquisition such opportunities might
generate.
Josh reported that a local non-profit has offered to canvas in
high-need
neighborhoods free of charge, but he has not yet used the
service because of the time required
to keep basic operations going.15 He notes that marketing has

been “thin” since re-launching
12
the Weekly Market Program, but knows more outreach is
needed.15 Josh hopes to have more
time for higher-level collaborating and strategizing now that an
operations manager has been
hired (Exhibit 6 shows Fresh Truck’s organizational structure).
Having the operations
manager focus on directing and maintaining business operations
enables Josh to focus more
on strategic planning, innovation and business development,
partnership development, and
fundraising.15
Many ideas wait in the wings, such as installing refrigerated
cases so the trucks can
carry prepared foods as well as fresh produce, weatherizing the
trucks so they will be warm in
winter, making better use of volunteers, hosting community
dinners, employing a contract

grant writer, and implementing real-time text and email
notifications to inform customers of
upcoming stops.15
Inventory Control
Another challenge surrounds Fresh Truck’s inventory control.
Fresh Truck aims to
make a 35% gross margin on produce sold, and assumes
approximately 15% waste. Fresh
Truck buys wholesale fruits and vegetables, which reduces their
cost but also reduces
flexibility in terms of purchasing smaller quantities. For
example, if the trucks are getting low
on cucumbers, Josh cannot buy just a few more. He has to either
buy an entire extra crate
(risking the cucumbers going bad), or potentially sell out of
cucumbers (losing sales and
affecting customer satisfaction). This issue is small when
considering just one food item, but
gains significance when it affects multiple items carried.
Fresh Truck does not yet have enough inventory and sales data
or the tools to project
what it will sell in each area, and must rely on experience and
intuition to make wholesale

purchase decisions each morning. Using the second truck allows
the business to stock and
sell more produce and move produce between the trucks, but
while the entire operation is
still small this challenge remains. Josh works with his
operations manager to strategize better
ways to sell or use older produce first while ensuring that a high
level of quality is
maintained.15
Parking Issues
Parking in Boston is notoriously challenging and directly
affects Fresh Truck’s growth
and sustainability. Fresh Truck drivers aim to park in the same
location each visit to provide
continuity and familiarity for customers, but they occasionally
need to park in different
locations due to construction, other vehicles, street closures, or
other reasons. Josh reported
that once while he was scheduled to park near Charlestown High
School, he was forced to
park over a block away from his usual place,15 which made it
more difficult for people to find
the truck. While these parking challenges only happen on
occasion, they represent some of

13
the challenges of operating a mobile produce market in Boston.
Last-minute parking
arrangements also put Fresh Truck at risk of being fined, being
towed, or otherwise coming
into conflict with Boston’s stringent parking laws.
Measuring Impact
A final emerging challenge for Fresh Truck, as for most social
enterprises, is
measuring its impact. Fresh Truck has begun to collect sales
data for each stop, which is a
good measure of outputs that will also help inventory
management, marketing, and
community engagement. However, Fresh Truck still faces the
need to measure the outcomes
it creates for the communities it serves. Improvements to
community health and awareness
of food-related health issues are difficult to measure, because
many factors determine the

overall health and awareness of a community. Because of this, it
will be challenging to link
Fresh Truck’s presence to changes in a particular neighborhood.
A Crucial Timefor Fresh Truck
Josh and his team at Fresh Truck have come a long way since
that initial business
plan competition (Exhibit 7 shows a timeline of Fresh Truck’s
History). Fresh Truck has
spent the past few years garnering support and funding, and
creating the local partnerships
necessary to establish the enterprise. The organization has built
strong relationships with
healthcare, food-access, and community organizations
throughout Boston. Beyond its pilot
phase, Josh is now focusing on developing the customer base,
doing further community
engagement, and increasing capacity through the second truck,
with the goal of Fresh Truck
supporting itself entirely through earned revenue. The Weekly
Market Program is now in full
swing throughout Boston,15 and with the second truck, Fresh
Truck is entering what Josh
hopes is a growth stage.

Fresh Truck is at a critical stage of its development. Josh is
faced with managing the
challenges described above to create a sustainable business
model that will enable Fresh
Truck to meet its mission “to support community health by
increasing access to healthy foods
and promoting nutrition education”.1 However, with lower-
than-desired customer traffic and
customer spending, and the need to bring marketing efforts to
the next level, there is much
work to do.
Josh needs to decide exactly how he can and wants to grow the
business so the
business model is sustainable and Fresh Truck meets its social
goals. This will entail not only
managing the operational side of things, but also creating
demand for Fresh Truck’s offerings
within target communities. He must also decide how to optimize
the community resources he
has built to date, so that he positively affects his target
neighborhoods. He envisions

14
customers budgeting time to purchase food from the truck’s
residential stops and
incorporating his model into their grocery shopping habits.
Bringing that vision to reality will
demand building a market by educating target communities
about the value of healthy
eating.
15
Exhibits
Exhibit 1 – FoodAvailability versus Community
Income
Source: ICIC17

16
Exhibit 2 – Distance to Grocery Stores in
Boston’s Low-Income Communities
Source: Map generated from data available from the USDA’s
Food Access Research Atlas18
17
Exhibit 3 – Fresh Truck’s Story
Source: Fresh Truck website19
18

Exhibit 4 – Neighborhoods Targeted by Fresh
Truck
Source: Fresh Truck’s Kickstarter video8
19
Exhibit 5 – Photos of the First Fresh Truck
20
Source: Fresh Truck16

21
Exhibit 6 – Fresh Truck’s Organizational
Structure
22
Exhibit 7 – Fresh Truck’s History
Source: Fresh Truck16
23

References
1. Fresh Truck. Fresh Truck business plan.
2. Gordon, S. 2015. Tight FoodBudget Can
Wreak Havoc on Diabetes Management.
https://consumer.healthday.com/diabetes-information-10/diet-
diabetes-news-178/low-
food-budget-can-wreak-havoc-on-diabetes-management-
700252.html, accessed 2 August
2016.
3. United StateDepartment of Agriculture.
Definitionof a FoodDesert.
http://www.ers.usda.gov/dataFiles/Food_Access_Research_Atla
s/Download_the_Data/Archi
ved_Version/archived_documentation.pdf, accessed 10
December 2015.
4. American Nutrition Association. 2015. USDA
Defines FoodDeserts, Nutrition Digest, 38/2.
5. United States Department of Agriculture.
2009. Report to Congress: Access to
Affordable and
Nutritious Food: Measuring and Understanding Food
Deserts and Their Consequences.
https://www.ers.usda.gov/webdocs/publications/ap036/12698_ap
036fm_1_.pdf, accessed 3
April 2016.
6. The FoodTrust. 2010. Foodfor every child:
The need for more supermarkets in Massachusetts,
The FoodTrust: Philadelphia.
7. The Boston Foundation. 2015. Healthy

People/Healthy Economy: An Initiative to Make
Massachusetts the National Leader in Health and
Wellness, The Boston Foundation.
8. Kickstarter. 2013. Fresh Truck - Mobile
Farmers Market.
https://www.kickstarter.com/projects/1530126668/fresh-truck-
mobile-farmers-
market/description, accessed 28 July 2016.
9. Haigh, N., E.D. Kennedy and J. Walker. 2015.
Hybrid Organizations as Shape-Shifters:Altering
Legal
Structure for Strategic Gain, CaliforniaManagement
Review, 57/3:59-82.
10. Fresh Truck. 2012. Fresh Truck
receives first funding! www.freshtruck.org,
accessed 29 July 2016.
11. The FoodProject. 2016. Boston Bounty Bucks.
http://thefoodproject.org/bountybucks, accessed
26 July 2016.
12. City of Boston. 2016. Boston Bounty Bucks.
https://www.cityofboston.gov/food/bountybucks.asp,
accessed 2 August 2016.
13. Fair Foods. 2016. Fair Foods Inc. website.
http://www.fairfoods.org/, accessed 3 July 2016.
14. Fresh Truck. 2015. Fresh Truck Re-
Fresh Organizational Development Initiative.
15. Interviews and emails with Josh Trautwein of
Fresh Truck between 5 October and 5
December,

2015.
16. Fresh Truck. 2016. Fresh Truck internal
documents.
17. ICIC. 2015. FoodAvailability Versus Food
Affordability: Income Disparities Create Food
Deserts in
Boston. http://icic.org/food-availability-versus-food-
affordability/, accessed 4 October 2016.
18. USDA. 2014. FoodAccess Research Atlas.
http://www.ers.usda.gov/data-products/food-access-
research-atlas/go-to-the-atlas.aspx, accessed 15 May 2015.
19. Fresh Truck. 2017. Fresh Truck
Website: Our Story. www.freshtruck.org,
accessed 31 March
2017.

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