About this idea
The specific market addressed by Tor’s Tonics is the functional beverages market, which was valued at $110,148.9 million in 2020. Our segment of customers is naturopathic, health conscious, and looking to balance their overall being using the power of nature. There is not currently a product on the market that combines multiple supplement-style ingredients and is also fully vegan and organic. Moving forward, our products will remain vegan and organic, but will also include attributes which make them available to other dietary limitations and widen our market base.
Natural supplements provide support to our bodies and minds, but sometimes taking a handful of powerful herbs in pill form can do a number on your digestive process or leave you feeling a little woozy. Therefore, we choose to blend fresh liquid forms of natural supplements with a friendly tea base. By ingesting ingredients such as fresh ginger, turmeric, mushroom extracts, various tea strains, etc., in a clean and carefully curated quantity, our products deliver all the benefits of daily supplements in a unique, new, and enjoyable method. Our customers appreciate the convenience of refreshment and restoration all in one bottle.
Tor’s Tonics currently generates revenue via 65% wholesale accounts with supermarkets, restaurants, bars, and cafes, and 35% retail sales at the Fulton Street Farmers Market each weekend. We will earn future funding from generated revenue, as well as continued efforts to be awarded small business grant funding. Key partnerships we require to operate are with our licensed, shared kitchen space at the Downtown Market, and with our main ingredient supplier, Harvest Health Foods.
Our short-term goal is to increase sales and visibility so that we can lay the groundwork to someday have these products available to whomever may want them. Our long-range goal is to gain the tools and equipment needed to bring our margins down. As a result, we will be able to reach a broader income range and increase accessibility of this type of product to disadvantaged communities.
Impact
Individuals with voluntary or involuntary dietary restrictions understand the benefit of this product right away - maintaining vegan and organic stature, we supply the public with a new alternative to a rigorous supplement routine, and expand the selection of all-natural options in the beverage market.
The initial experience with one of my blends introduces customers to the immediate physical feeling of restoration and fortification of their depleted departments. Upon making Tor's Tonics part of a weekly or daily routine, the target market has expressed a noticeable improvement and balancing of their body's physical and metaphysical systems. Each serving contains the recommended dose of the supplemental ingredients, so the customer actually ingests what would be recommended if they were to take these supplements in pill form. Routine ingestion, especially Ayurvedic in method, will lead to relief from inflammation, balancing of gut health, joint support, increased antioxidants, and the vast benefits gained from the presence of Reishi and Lion's Mane mushrooms within one's diet. The high-grade organic ingredients used in Tor's Tonics blends can bring a power packed convenient option, especially in areas where these types of supplements and ingredients tend to be scarce. It is our goal to make the healing power of pure natural ingredients attainable to not only the health conscious or those hindered by dietary limitations, but to those in disadvantaged areas who have not been afforded this opportunity.
What I'll do with $5,000
With an award of $5,000, Tor's Tonics would be able to make the next move in growing production. We are looking to purchase an automatic bottle label applicator, potentially a bottle-filling machine, and to purchase more bottles. With a growing demand, our goal is to immediately scale up to offer our products to a wider area and to cut down costs of production which will in turn lower our margins, allowing us to pay that benefit forward to our customers and retailers.
We are currently hand labeling and bottling each bottle, which is rapidly becoming inefficient as we pay hourly for our production time and space. With the labeling machine alone we could increase production by up to 50%!
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About Victoria Zalokar Rieth
I am an entrepreneur who lives on the Westside but has roots all over the greater Grand Rapids area, and the solo-owner of the beverage business, Tor's Tonics.
