Blakes Feast to Blakeaway
Events catering company adds a ready-made meals arm to its business and thrives.
Snapshot
Who: Blakeaway
Food business segment: Catering Company
Location: Melbourne and Portsea, VIC
Looking for an alternative reliable revenue stream, Blakes Feast decided to launch a direct-to-customer ready-made meals business called Blakeaway.
Situation
Blakeaway’s weekly offering was well received by customers from day one, but managing it was chaotic and stressful. There was no ordering system in place, no readily accessible menus, and no easy way to take customer payments. Very quickly it became obvious that the setup was too manual, and therefore not scalable, nor sustainable.
Solution
Already savvy about the power of cooking in a batch to fulfil orders, caterer Blakes Feast was able to harness the power of batch run through Cookaborough to offer efficient and profitable meal solutions directly to their customers. Within the first 5 weeks on Cookaborough, Blakeaway had generated over $100k in sales, creating a new, complementary, sustainable revenue stream, opening three retail stores stocking their meals, with no negative impact on the weekly home delivered business.
Business Highlights
A New Direct-to-Customer Model
Taking out the middleman, Blakes Feast was able to directly connect with customers and build an active community of over 1,500 menu subscribers, 150 orders per week, and growing.
Analytics
Data analytics tools and customer database tools allow Blakeaway to predict and plan each menu making sure popular meals appear on the menu every week, as well as fresh weekly creations from the chefs.
Enhanced Predictability
Orders placed, paid, and aggregated in advance provide a predictable and ongoing alternative revenue stream, smoothing out the unpredictable nature of running an events catering business.
Multifaceted Task Management
Starting a ready-made meal business without Cookaborough was chaotic, stressful, and difficult to manage. The menu of features allow a seamless operation but also the ability to keep the menu offering feeling fresh every week.
"The platform was easy to use and presented a complete end-to-end solution for us. It provided us with immediate relief during a really stressful time and helped us build an amazing new ready-made meal offering that is allowing us to thrive."
— Andrew, Blakeaway
