Problem:
Some people struggle with eating well regularly at work. Especially if you don’t have a lunch box from home, like me. What if people had a way to automate this daily meal ordering–set it in motion once per month/quarter (or per year!) and the meals show up daily without any further hassle?
The Idea:
Launch an online food subscription business where customers can select meals from a menu (breakfast/lunch/dinner), subscribe per month while you deliver the food.
To introduce a fun element to the service, you can allow customers to nominate favourite meals weekly or monthly and vote to determine which one becomes the monthly or weekly special.
Steps to Consider:
- Take care of regulatory food handling requirements
- Plan meals
- Set up food sourcing, preparation, packing, delivery system
- Create a website and/or app for meal ordering, subscription, and other customer interactions
- Use cost-efficient marketing
- Start simple: what would be your simplest way to explore this idea?
Challenges:
- Food handling and catering expertise required
- You’d need to find the best type of meal packaging to keep the meals fresh, hot, cool–as required
- Logistics is a big deal. Meals must arrive at offices on time to give the venture a chance; partnering with logistics provider might help
Gains:
Recurrent revenue from upfront customer orders
Note: I first drafted this idea many years ago. I was happy to discover Eden is already executing it in a form.
However, I still think it’s a viable idea to explore. While what I’ve presented here is a simple description, anyone can explore it successfully with some creativity.