Delivery is not possible? The Foodr app optimizes the sale of take-out meals

In the villages of the Petite Camargue, it is difficult to have your meal delivered to your home, the large platforms rarely risk going further than urban areas. It is here, in the countryside between Hérault and Gard, that Florian Marcon and Hugues Trijasse had the idea to launch Foodr, a click and collect application to order meals from restaurants. A use that is not, unlike delivery, still very optimized, notes the young company.

“In the villages, we are forced to take out,” says Hugues Trijasse, a graduate of Montpellier Business School, and whose partner went through the Epitech computer school. “But once at the restaurant, you have to queue, order, pay, then wait for it to be ready. We said to ourselves that there was undoubtedly a lack in the digitalization of take-out, which is tedious on the customer’s side, as on the restaurant owner’s side. »Their platform, available for free on the AppStore and Google Store, allows gourmets to choose from restaurants, grocery stores, bakeries, food-trucks or partner bars, to pay remotely, to indicate the schedule of their choice, then collect their meals on site.

“A big boom with confinement”

Today, around a hundred restaurants are referenced by the application, between Montpellier and Nîmes, but also in Paris. And around 5,000 users have ordered from Foodr since its launch. The service, deployed in September, has experienced “a big boom with containment,” says the entrepreneur. In recent weeks, the curfew, on the other hand, has slowed the pace of orders somewhat, with the measure not allowing click and collect after 6 p.m. To continue its development despite everything, the start-up, incubated within the Via Innova incubator in Lunel, has devised a turnkey service, which allows establishments to have their own store to take away on their website or their social networks. And it is not yet question, for the moment, that the two entrepreneurs launch out in the delivery. “It’s too much logistics, we are still too small for that,” says Hugues Trijasse.

When you order on the Foodr application, “for the customer, it’s completely free, he pays no additional costs, it’s the same price as in a restaurant,” continues the Occitan entrepreneur. During the Covid-19 crisis, we only take a 5% commission, at cost, from the restaurant owner. But if he only wants to be referenced on the application, it’s completely free, for him too. “

“We play the local card”

At Uber Eats and Deliveroo, there are also no charges for customers who choose take-out offers, unlike deliveries. And during the crisis, to support their activity, it’s free, too, for restaurateurs, we learned from the two applications. “Since March 2020 and the start of the health crisis, we have not taken a commission on take-out sales. We offer this service free of charge to restaurateurs, ”notes Deliveroo. At Uber Eats, it’s the same: since October 30, restaurant owners have not paid any commission for take-out orders. Before the epidemic, it was on average 15%, the platform says.

But how do you manage when you are a young start-up to find a place in a sector dominated by large platforms? “We play the local card a lot,” continues the entrepreneur. We contact the restaurants to present the offer to them. There is no obstacle for them to refuse. Each restaurant that is referenced will gradually reach its community, and so on. We also use local micro-influencers to present our application. Little by little, it takes. And above all, Foodr is aimed in particular at rural areas, which the bulk of the sector does not deliver.