The Bite Club :Lost in translation !

Tired of eating out,Same old menus of the restaurant and same old greasy unhygienic stuff? Nostalgic about home food? Need a change? Ánd will you pay a premium price for it? How about trying out what each home chef has to offer, the belief that there are signature dishes and recipes which you just can’t get anywhere , The authentic taste, the real deal are part of the household for many and some would want to serve it to other people. Bite Club for many and some would want to serve it to other people. Bite Club had everyone drooling over their home chef’s rotating menu. Be it the understated elegance of Chef Gul’s Biryani or Simple Roti Daal and Bhindi from Mrs. Garg   , The Delightful mini Idlis or was it the exquisite Iranian  Cuisine or the Korean Platter dished out for you. In the circles it became a norm to check out every day to see “Aaj bite club main kya hai “  with favorites being sold out within minutes , Imagine lunch menu  from top chefs being sold out at 10 AM? Everyone regardless of the age group who tried BiteClub enjoyed it and there was instant stickiness to the whole thing  , people would reorder ,referrals and word of mouth being their most important assets.

The Juicy Burger : Photo Credit Divya Saluja

So what’s wrong you may Ask? Why are they struggling Now? How have they changed over last 2 years?

Now consider the challenges facing them ,since there is a difference between home and commercial area and its location logistics is a challenge so Bite club sorted it out with single Pickup from the house , stored it and delivered orders in slots ( 12PM -1PM Slot), they never claimed to be an on-demand food delivery people.  Building supply of the food is a challenge as you have to go hunting for these chefs in forums, word of mouth and they should be willing to take up the task. Bite Club would equip them with Branded Packaging Material. So you order and your food gets delivered in the time slot you wanted it to be. So Sorted Right ? Wrong? This lead to new Challenges.

The flaws are the same which I discussed as key success factors in my last blog.

(1)    Food is a live product with a half-life to be served at the right time, right temperature and right physical form. Since this was home food half life isn’t 2 hours but maybe 3-4 hours. But NOBODY LIKES TO PAY A PREMIUM PRICE AND WANTS TO RECEIVE A LUKEWARM FOOD PACK Period. And Biteclub never tried to solve it, It’s not rocket science, you supply your vendors with microwavable packing or use heat packs to store them. They should understand that it’s not groceries , but people tolerated and brand got stretched as the home food was what they offered.

(2)    Now since they stored it god knows under what condition, they were stuck with unsold inventory and would do flash sales at night. So imagine a food pack picked up in morning which didn’t sell in lunch remained there till 9PM. I know this as I used to track dishes. So one was to pick up batch orders and drop in batches.

(3)    Now you have wastage each day so you have to factor it in your cost so they couldn’t make it affordable lunch packs hovering around 200-350, with few exceptions in 150-200 range.

(4)    They couldn’t maintain consistency of service and scale.

(5)    They quietly added restaurants and started selling their food under a white label or even mention the chef’s name with no credit given to restaurants bcos the loyal followers would eventually find out and on the supply side Biteclub lost their superstar chef’s . What remains on their platform today are those who have their own catering business or occasional chefs or restaurants.

So I Shot an email to them inquiring about the change and the why have they added places with a dubious reputation and lousy regard to hygiene, the reply from CEO was we had trouble scaling up and we ensure all our partners maintain quality standards. So the next email was to list down their SOP for quality checks and their FSSAI license, and of course, the email went unanswered.

The rumors abound about their surviving 2016, BTW they did manage to raise some money in 2015 and not making unit economics. I would say KARMA. As I am writing this I still ordered from Bite Club today a simple daal bhindi roti meal from one of the few trusted chef’s that remain on the platform.

Bite Club you were cool once! But you succumbed to your investor’s pressure and news of peers raising millions. In the process, you betrayed  your brand promise.