Original Sam's Indian Bread – a Business Plan

GOAL: Develop a customer following for a fried bread brand that can be sold to a major food company like Pillsbury, General Foods, or General Mills for over $100 million

INVESTMENT: As little as possible. The central organization, led by Cimmaron Sam and friends, will focus on brand and product development. The selling of the fried bread will be done by existing fast food stores, particularly well-located taquerias. This marketing strategy will eliminate most of the need for investment capital in buildings and equipment. And it will bring in business partners with proven sales success.

PRODUCT LINE: Original fried bread, Maple Sugar/ Honey dessert fried bread, Spicy fried bread, Nutty fried bread (Pine Nuts and Walnuts), and Indian Herbs fried bread. These dough products will be made in a central, controlled environment – then sent to the fast food stores in plastic wrapped, and probably refrigerated or frozen boxes. Eventually it is projected that an Original Sam's factory will be built in a Nevada Indian reservation. That reservation will benefit not only from the new employment, but from a well-publicized program of part of the profits being used for physical improvements to the reservation.

MARKETING: Development of a favorable brand image is crucial for the success of this business. Early product development should focus on healthy aspects of the food, like whole grain flours, raw vegetables eaten with the Indian tacos, fresh fruits served with the dessert fried breads. Customers should find easily available stories on the health and history of Indian fried breads as part of the American frontier and chuckwagon legends.

IMAGE: A cartoon image of Original Sam on all products (analogous to the Quaker Oats man) might be loosely based on Cimmaron Sam's image, perhaps with a head feather dressed for a pow-wow dance. Cim would have to decide on the amount of personal publicity acceptable to him. It could be an inspiring all-American success story of the movement from troubled teenager to redemption at AA to creative musician, to sharing traditional Sam family recipes with the public. The cartoon Indian should be general enough that many others could play its live person role in taste testings, in announcing Sam's fried bread products as a new offering at stores, etc.

SALES: Starting with a taqueria in South Lake Tahoe (preferably on highway 50), Original Sam's Indian Bread would be a partnership between the central product operations and outside retail