1.

Opportunities and threats

Opportunities:
 High market Capital: The United States tallied 150 billion USD in 2019 which clearly
reflects a huge amount of beverage consumption in the US.
 Ethnic Touch: The beverage being an authentic Mexican drink will attract more
customers from both locals and nonlocals as it represents a culture and heritage
 The desire for different flavors: Americans continued to desire more unique flavors
in foods and beverages paving a way for Bandida
 Health-conscious: Bandida being a healthy drink paved the way for health-conscious
people as 41% of Gen Z and 32% of Millennials responded on a survey that they are
willing to pay more for sustainably sourced ingredients.
Challenges:
 Production cost: Bandida's product stemmed from the high cost of ingredients and
shipping charges. And due to lack in demand, Meza couldn't buy the ingredients in
bulk to reduce the price.
 Low shelf life: with a shelf life of 2 weeks and limited availability of inventories would
present as a challenge in the near future in case the demand increases
 Strong Feminist belief: Her strong feminist belief in recruiting of maintaining
partnerships may become a barrier for the growth of the company

2. Meza’s Social mission has a huge positive view in the industry as there are many
renowned and large companies that supports a company with mission. Large firms such as
PepsiCo, worked to identify and support purpose driven food and beverages brands keeping
up with the latest trends. PepsiCo pursued this through a program that aims to accelerate
growth of entrepreneurs who has purpose driven brands that are changing the way
consumers eat and drink. Beauty Gourmet a firm with similar mission as Bandida
participated in the PepsiCo program. The firm was also a women owned food and beverages
company. There are many other renowned mission driven companies such as Ben & Jerry’s
and Patagonia Provisions.

3. Bandida being equally focused on ensuring the brand staying focused on the mission
of empowering women and making a positive impact affected the new venture in a positive
way as a huge number of people were willing to buy products of a company that deals with
social issues. Also, with her target audiences highly enthusiastic of social missions
and being heavily engaged in food and beverages amassing thousands of followers in social
media trying aesthetically pleasing food and latest food trends is of a huge advantage.
But the ideology of a company being run only by women and people of color poses a threat
as she'll at times have to choose the second-best to stick to the mission. Meza has been
finding difficulties in finding teams or sources which were being run only by females and
customers pointing out that only some of the ingredients are women sourced.

4. Meza should strongly continue upholding the mission and spread awareness on the
same as she would be needing experienced female and people of color to partner and work
along with. Though she may be finding difficulties in recruiting and sourcing the ingredients
in the initial stage but in the long run there’ll be much greater benefits and opportunities.
Also while diverting from the mission, keeping it transparent will help in getting more loyal
customers.
5. I would recommend proceeding with B2C e-commerce at the initial stage as it would
be easier to maintain her mission and social responsibility. Giving her time to work on
increasing the shelf life of the product. Also, with digital marketing and e-commerce,
promotion and distribution will be much easier. Collaborations with e-commerce websites
like amazon, door dash would be very much effective. B2B: retailers is also a great path but
the product is not ready for it as the product does not have enough recognition yet and the
solution for increasing a shelf life was yet to be devised. Thus, with low shelf life and low
demand of the product would cause a huge problem.
Thus, I would recommend the B2C: e-commerce even though it may slightly be expensive
initially, it would give her a deeper understanding of the product, gain recognition and build
a loyal customer base.