Young start-ups remodel China's food delivery market
- By Verena Menzel
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E-mail China Today, March 22, 2016
"Mr. Food"
One such promising newcomer is the "Mr. Food" website, founded in 2014. The business idea of this start-up struck a chord with the many white collars living in China's large cities that have little time for cooking but are unwilling to order restaurant meals on a daily basis.
The "Young Food Gentleman," as the service is called in Chinese, delivers the ingredients – washed, sliced and neatly packed in small plastic bags – with which to prepare many classic Chinese dishes. The customer receives the vegetables, meat, and spices he needs to cook his favorite dish carefully packed in a small plastic box. The service so enables working people to make themselves a tasty meal at home after work without spending too much time on buying and peeling, washing, and chopping the ingredients.
The "Mr. Food" website offers a broad selection of traditional Chinese dishes, such as Kung Pao chicken and popular noodle dishes. It also carries illustrated and concise cooking instructions for every dish.
The "Mr. Food" founders are three graduates from the renowned Renmin University of China. Not one of them hesitated to give up their well-paid job to explore this business idea. Their start-up in some way follows in the footsteps of companies like the U.S. Blue Apron, and the Berlin start-up HelloFresh, both of which have offered comparable services in the West since around 2011.
The concept seems tailor-made for the Chinese market, especially under the background of periodical food scandal revelations, such as the use in restaurants of low-grade cooking oil and bad quality ingredients, as well as lax standards of hygiene in smaller restaurant kitchens.
With the help of the "Young Food Gentleman" Chinese customers can cook with good quality ingredients and use their own oil and spices. The only catch is that orders must be placed one day in advance, which to some degree inhibits spontaneity.
Invite Your Own Chef to Your Home-Kitchen!
For those not satisfied merely with ingredients but who also want their own chef, the "Good Chef" application is the right choice. Through this start-up, also founded in 2014 and which provides its services in big cities like Shanghai, Hangzhou, and Beijing, users can book a personal chef to work in their kitchens. These professional cooks, with their perfect white aprons and classy chef's hats, are both visually impressive and highly functional, as they bring all the necessary ingredients – and equipment too if necessary, with them. After cooking and serving they also take care of the cleaning up.
Best of all, this worry-free package is available in China at an affordable price that easily competes with that of a traditional delivery order. The cheapest menu, at RMB 99 (around US $15), consists of four dishes, including meat and fish, plus soup. Customers can as well choose from among various regional cuisines such as Yunnan or Sichuan style cooking.
The start-up also offers private party packages, company celebrations, or grand banquets. People throwing such celebrations can learn culinary tips from real masters while they prepare the feast and obtain expert advice about their particular cooking preferences. The "Good Chef" thus also incorporates the human aspect, in contrast to traditional food-delivery services.
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