The New Underdogs of Food Delivery
By: Tahir Shah
Tags: Apps, Food Delivery, Startup, Restaurant, Uber

Mrs. B cannot be found on Deliveroo, or Uber Eats, or Just Eats, and doesn’t give discounts. Yet every Thursday, she cooks, packs and delivers for a waiting list of customers who would be the envy of any restaurant on those apps.

Under the radar of a world in ‘peak food delivery’, a small movement hums — that of the home chef. Mostly found through Facebook and Instagram, these micro businesses are serving a people who are craving home food and either don’t have the time to make it, or the skill is being lost generation to generation as working couples become the norm. More importantly, it comes on the back of people now accustomed to ordering online and too many restaurants serving far too similar food, anonymising the connection between the eater and the maker — people are feeling the need for authenticity, not ‘what the data says’ restaurants should serve.

“First of all, I’ve never eaten chicken tikka masala in my home in my life”. So tells me Gavin, who helps his mum run Mrs. B. They sell exactly what they would eat at home — dishes like keema with peas, and aloo baingan. His response represents a rising sentiment within the younger South Asian community in the UK — Indian food is nothing like what is eaten in the homes of Indians, Pakistanis and Bangladeshis.

For Mrs. B, it began when they would cook huge meals at home and offer extra food to their friends and colleagues the next day. The response from non Asians would be ‘oh my god, that food was amazing, it’s so different to what we’re used to’. Although she works part time as a teacher, her son kept encouraging her to start a side business, ‘My mum was nervous yet excited about the challenge but the feedback we received gave her confidence to persevere’. And so they initially tested on WhatsApp groups, until eventually Gavin took on the marketing side of the business and set his mum up on Instagram and Facebook. Now, a set menu is released every week for scheduled delivery, and each week they sell out, fast.

This story is a microcosm into a larger movement; a reaction to delivery apps where restaurants are losing individuality and character. With the ubiquity of food delivery, it’s easier now to start a restaurant and so cue a gold rush of burger and fried chicken joints appearing as virtual restaurants. These are quick to set-up brands, run out of existing restaurants or cloud kitchens by having the same chefs cook dishes with existing ingredients and rebrand as a newly listed restaurant on the delivery apps. As these new brands pop-up and outpace genuinely great restaurants, delivery food is in danger of tasting very similar in quality and losing the specialisation of chefs. For a great in-depth commentary on virtual restaurants, check this excellent article by Food Sheikh.

On one side therefore you have an increasingly anodyne delivery selection. Meanwhile, meal kit deliveries are also on the rise; both Gousto and Mindful Chef recently raised series funding for hyper growth. Again, a response to a market not having the time to cook at home. But is there a crack beginning to appear amongst people for whom healthy food is not exciting and food delivery is hit and miss — especially ethnic communities?

Home chefs are people who love what they do, and specialise in particular types of dishes not easy to find on apps. It’s in the home kitchens where we are seeing what used to be part of our favourite local restaurant: high quality control, high expertise, limited speciality dishes. Again, this is partly a reaction to people who don’t have the time to cook at home any more and are craving something authentic. But I want to offer a more interesting observation. This is supplanting what used to be the human connection with the chef-owner at the local mom-n-pop store. “I wouldn’t be able to afford the commission the apps charge for a business of my size. But what’s really important for me is the connection to my customer — they all chat directly with me and I love to have a bit of friendly banter with them. I think that’s what makes ordering my food extra enjoyable for them’, says Muhanna who runs Tiffin St., cooking up a more modern take on desi home food. This was also one of the most important things for Mitha, who started Mithas Munchies to showcase true Bengali food on the table in response to a community missing home food.

It’s still quite early to say where any of this will go, especially after life begins to slowly return to normal and people want to be social again. But it’s a warning for unchecked overcrowding of virtual brands built on data, encouraging lack of differentiation, and monolithic food delivery anonymity. The best thing about home chefs is discovering a micro culture, a speciality dish not found in restaurants, or a familiar dish cooked in its most authentic version. I for one hope they are here to stay and champion these underdogs as I continue discovering London’s food scene — and what better place to start than its kitchens.