Business concept: lunch deliveries

Larkinage

Hi folks,

I've been playing around with an idea for a business for the past couple of months.

Basically, the concept is a service that delivers fresh lunches to workplaces around Dublin daily. The idea is that for a reasonable weekly fee, people can design their lunch menu for the week (Mon - Fri), pay the fee and have a fresh lunch delivered to their work place daily.

I work in the takeaway industry and I'm fairly clued in to how the industry works. The idea came about over a period of time by watching how much people spend on getting food delivered every night. As well as this, I've noticed the rise of a few new businesses delivering healthy weekly meal plans seemingly aimed at the busy professional who wants to eat healthy everyday but hasn't got the time to prepare healthy meals. It got me thinking that there might be a gap in the market for the delivery of the work lunch. The unique selling point for us would be that the food is delivered fresh every day, I am fully aware of the added cost brought by that.

I have my eye on a viable premises for the food preparation and the deliveries will be carried out, initially, by myself and the other partner. From my experience in the takeaway industry I am also familiar with the relevant suppliers.

I'd be very grateful if some of you could take the time to pick apart my idea and find the flaws, many of which I'm sure can be found. Obviously the idea is still in its earliest stage but I really believe that with the right market research and advertising that this can be turned into a viable service.

Axwell

This is being done by a number of companies already so you are - some based around paelo diets etc. What research have you done into these companies as there are enough of them doing it for you to be able to have a good analysis of the business model and potential pitfalls.

Heres 11 of them for starters - pretty sure Chopped also have an option for your 3 meals a day for the week.

Bandara

This is done in many various guises already

The big issue that you have and I don't see how you can overcome is why would I tie myself down to ordering from you for a full week ?

I have Deliveroo, Just Eat etc etc who all carry huge ranges of food from the junkiest of junk to the healthy stuff from 100s of outlets under one umbrella

Then you have down-the-sofa, same idea on a more focused scale with top class food outlets signed up with them and a superb front office for the end user.

Then you have Counter Culture who essentially have downgraded their restaurant as a by product where the real business is the outside catering they do for companies without canteen facilities.

You approaching this from the wrong angle imo, the way to make money here isn't to reinvent the wheel.



Edit : I noticed you are 21 years old. I very much admire your drive, and your post is written very thoughtfully. But I have to suggest that you are really going to struggle to do anything without a significant ie. six figure sum behind you to get started up. And you will find is incredibly difficult to get any form of premises and if you do you'll need 6 -9 months rent up front - landlords hate food businesses and they hate new food businesses even more - then throw in your young age your up against it big time. One thing I must pull you up on, you are not clued in on how the industry works, you have never operated a takeaway business and are a complete novice, and trust me, as someone who made a balls of everything while thinking I knew it all for the first 5 years in business, there is a hell of a lot you need to learn the hard way about food - its a pig of an industry.

I suggest getting a job in one of the companies Axwell has listed, keep you head down and your ears open and serve your time while getting experience that will stand you in great stead. Then make your move. Good luck with it, and well done on your attitude.

Larkinage

Larkinage wrote: »

........ I really believe that with the right market research and advertising that this can be turned into a viable service.

How many lunches a day do you need to deliver to make it viable?

Delacent

And they will all want it for 12.55pm - if you are 5 minutes late they'll complain on facebook and leave bad reviews. If its not perfect, they'll also leave bad reviews. Then some days they'll be out of the office and expect you to know that telepathically and complain if you charge them for that day.

The logistics of it would make it at best an add-on to a current business than a standalone business.

Those who are fussy enough for healthy lunches will also care enough to make their own.

Larger companies have their own canteens

And then for the larger one-offs such as meetings you have specialists such as http://sweetcicely.ie/

I'm not saying a definite no no, but food is a dreadfully hard business to make money from and the health and safety around it is extensive.

errlloyd

OP someone tried to do this for college students dinners in UCD a few years ago. I think they prepared the portions for 5 meals a week, delivered them at the start of the week and it allowed a student with a normally fitted out college kitchen to eat healthy without needing to do much prep or washing up. To me it was genius, particularly if you can sell it as a package to parents who are sending their kids to college in Dublin and want to make sure they eat healthily.

It seemed to work, but it only ran for one semester in UCD in 2012. The business market might be a bit crowded and have real logistical hassle, the student market might have potential.

lawred2

no money to be made in that and you'll need an army of delivery lads who you'll hope will work for next to nothing..

two of you acting as delivery drivers is not going to scale

Larkinage

Thanks for the feedback guys. I was aware that there was a few companies delivering high end meal plans regularly, but I didn't realise how flooded the market is. As I said, I believed our unique aspect was the the meal would be delivered fresh everyday. Of course we would be coming from a healthy angle as healthy eating seems to be getting increasingly popular. However, having a read through that list its becoming clear that the traditional brown bag lunch, as healthy as we claim to make it, simply won't cut it with whats on offer out there.

The issue of being tied down for a week has been thrown at us every time we've bounced the idea of anyone and it is very relevant. I was looking at heavily aiming the service at people like teachers, they have a busy schedule, get a short lunch, don't often get to a shop for their lunch due to commitments like lunch supervision, detentions, etc. As well as that we were looking at the busy parents who are running around on Sunday night getting kids organised for school, making kids lunches. They can log on to justeat.ie or marvin.ie or potentially an app of our own and in 5 minutes they can design their lunch plan for the week and have one less thing to worry about.

I think you're right in that we're trying to re invent the wheel here. But I definitely think theres still a market. But it looks like we'll have to up our game and re-think the product we're offering if we're to compete with whats out there already. Back to the drawing board.

Thanks again for the feedback folks, its very much appreciated.

Bandara

Delacent wrote: »

And they will all want it for 12.55pm - if you are 5 minutes late they'll complain on facebook and leave bad reviews. If its not perfect, they'll also leave bad reviews. Then some days they'll be out of the office and expect you to know that telepathically and complain if you charge them for that day.

How the model works is actually quite simple. the orders must be submitted daily before 10am via an extranet within the company, or direct on the providers website. Delivery is then between 11am-12:30pm with a barcode on each item which is scanned at the reception desk upon arrival at the intended company. Once this barcode is scanned a automated email/text message is sent to the customer informing the that their "Lunch is Downstairs" etc etc

The logistics of it would make it at best an add-on to a current business than a standalone business.

Agreed.

Those who are fussy enough for healthy lunches will also care enough to make their own.

Agreed. However that is only a tiny portion of the actual market. The real market for healthy food is people who want to be healthy, but find it hard to do so. Hence making it easy for them is the selling point.

Larger companies have their own canteens

And large companies are all desperately trying to find a way to close their canteens down and a subsidised deal with an offline company suits them perfectly. Staff are happy, the company is happy to let the catering jobs go, and no more equipment costs for the company

And then for the larger one-offs such as meetings you have specialists such as http://sweetcicely.ie/

I'm not saying a definite no no, but food is a dreadfully hard business to make money from and the health and safety around it is extensive.

Hi Delacent

Not having a go at you here but your post raised interesting points that I thought would be helpful to the OP to debate

Regards
Bandara

Bandara

lawred2 wrote: »

no money to be made in that and you'll need an army of delivery lads who you'll hope will work for next to nothing..

two of you acting as delivery drivers is not going to scale

The army of lads are quite easy to get. You add a delivery charge of €1 per item and the deliveryroo drivers etc are more than happy to deliver for that as they are very quiet in the morning times. You agree a area with each driver in advance Dublin 1, Dublin 4 etc and they work that area for you

Delacent

Bandara wrote: »

The army of lads are quite easy to get. You add a delivery charge of €1 per item and the deliveryroo drivers etc are more than happy to deliver for that as they are very quiet in the morning times. You agree a area with each driver in advance Dublin 1, Dublin 4 etc and they work that area for you

That's essy in the evening when students and others are in plentiful supply as delivery people and traffic quite light.

Monday to Friday 11am to 1pm may prove more difficult on both counts.

But fair play to op for thinking this way, the first idea is rarely the one that proceeds, but is the start of the process finding the idea that succeeds.

PARlance

Best of luck with whatever venture you end up doing OP, this might not be the one but something will come up for you in the future. Your thought process and ambition is very impressive for a 21 year old.

I'm not familiar with the industry but keep an eye out for trends elsewhere, there's generally a bit of a lag and if you spot a new trend further afield, you might get the headstart that proves the difference.

ironclaw

The industrial estate I'm in has no close shops so nearly all business depend on 'in house' catering or the small, not great cafe's near by. I know for a fact most business hate in house catering as the contracts are expensive and its near impossible to satisfy everyone even when food is heavily subsidized or free.

You could change it up a shade by offering a service to a particular industrial estate, set menu for the week and people can order if they fancy a change for a day or so that given week. Fill a van with your daily menu, based on what was pre-ordered and a percentage redundancy for last minutes, and I can see yourself doing well. A number of sites I visited in the US did something on similar lines e.g. They closed down the main catering kitchen but kept skeleton equipment. Outside food vendors came in on set days and set up stalls e.g. Pop up shops, and the employee's voted every month or so. Seemed to work well for them. You could do along the same lines but be entirely mobile, dropping off lunches at reception for people who ordered.

By closing your geographical area you are eliminating long runs between businesses and also allows you to concentrate your marketing very directly. Any cost saving a business can do and indeed if a business can keep employees on site for lunch is great for them (Bad for employees I know but employers loathe lengthy lunches when 20 mins either side is walking to / ordering / from lunch.

Start small and expand from there. Only issue I can see if you can never deal in hot food as you just couldn't cook, transport in bulk and deliver in the time schedules. But I for one wouldn't mind a decent salad or cold option once of twice a week. You could even cut out your own catering costs and design menus from local catering businesses, rebranded to suit yourself.