It cannot be easy to launch an on-demand food delivery app just before Uber announces its own, similar service with Toronto pilot project, but Paul Cowan believes the market is hungry for more competition.
Feast‘s iOS app made its debut on Dec. 7, barely two days in advance of a standalone app for UberEats, which was previously bundled into Uber’s cloud-based ride sharing service. Feast essentially allows smartphone users to choose from a variety of menu items and have them sent directly via staff riding electric cars or cargo bikes.
Paul Cowan, Feast
“It’s food delivery – it’s no more complex than that,” Cowan, Feast’s CMO, told Marketing a few days before the app launched in Apple’s App Store. “A lot of times food delivery is hit or miss in terms of how the food is handled. With Uber, it could sit in the trunk of a car for four or five hours. You end up with a brick of rice that’s really dried out.”
Like a lot of startups, Feast isn’t working with an ad agency or PR firm yet but handling all intial brand activities internally. Cowan said that means many aspects of the product and service experience itself become its key form of marketing.
The other area Feast hopes to differ from UberEats and similar food delivery startups such as GrubHub and Seamless, for example, is in doing its own food production and managing direct relationships with growers and local, organic suppliers who will help offer food that tastes great but has an international flair. The initial menu focuses less on fast food, for instance, and more on items such as seared albacore tuna nicoise, naturally-raised pork shoulder chili verde and Ontario beet & kale salad.
Beyond a sustainable fleet of cars, Cowan said Feast’s brand identity will become identified with its Danish-style cargo bikes with heated compartments on the front to keep food warm.
“With the different cargo bikes that we have, those create questions (among observers),” he said. “We’ve sent our people into different areas and sampled the concept, and we’ve been having a tremendous amount of interest.”
Feast will also be investing in teaching its delivery people to be more like restaurant servers.
“With an UberEats, it kind of feels like you’re doing a drug deal,” he said, describing a scene where food is dropped off by those driving dark cars with little fanfare. “We’re training (our delivery people) to have product knowledge, just hitting little things to make that service experience a lot better.”
Over time, Cowan said Feast’s digital marketing approach will follow those of many other app-centric organizations to attract downloads and boost retention among early adopters. That said, he suggested there’s still lots room at the table in the on-demand dining space.
“With food, it’s not winner-take all,” he added. “Someone could order off UberEats today and Ritual (a coffe/lunch app) tomorrow. We just want to inject ourselves into the natural cadence that people have in their ordering cycles.”
