Foodiz digital canteen aims to let office workers eat healthier

Just before the corona crisis, Foodiz saw the light of day in Brussels. Foodiz is what you might call a digital canteen. From a dark kitchen (a kitchen for preparing online meal deliveries) in the Belgian capital, hundreds of meals a day are delivered. The foodtech company wants to make the food culture in the workplace healthier. For this instalment of Start-up of the day, Innovation Origins spoke with CEO and founder Quentin Walravens.

Even before the corona crisis hit, Quentin Walravens (36) was already working on Foodiz. The company, which was founded in January 2020, aims to offer healthy, sustainable and artisanal lunches to office workplaces. Foodiz provides a variety of lunch menus for office employees which allows them to enjoy a meal together. You can choose between bowls, soup, sandwiches, gourmet wraps and so much more.

New creations feature on the menu every few months. All the food is prepared in a dark kitchen in Brussels. Those who order before eleven o’clock in the morning have their meal delivered their meal one hour later. Companies can take out a subscription which grants them access to a personalized platform. The delivery costs are paid by the employer.

How did the idea for Foodiz come about?

“I’ve seen people become frustrated with the poor quality of food at their work. I’ve experienced it myself. Employees went to eat something somewhere outside because of the lack of quality, but that was actually too expensive in the long run. We see that companies find it difficult to set up a restaurant for their staff. It is also not that easy for an employer to provide really good food. Especially now that everyone is working from home, a company kitchen costs a lot of money. Eating together, also virtually, is good for the company culture. It gives it a boost”.

How does your concept work?

“All meals are prepared in the central kitchen in Brussels by a team of 7 people. If you order the meal before 11 am it will be delivered to your office by noon. For home deliveries, the order must be made a day in advance. The whole process has been digitalized. It all works with a convenient app. Employers can use it to order good and healthy food at a reasonable price. We deliver meals for as little as €6. That makes us far cheaper than restaurants. By digitalizing everything, we can also work more cost-effectively and offer a wider range of food. It is also easy to instill this behavior in employees. They can order their lunch online themselves.”

What impact did the corona crisis have?

“It was difficult. We had to tweak our model. For example, we made sure that meals could be delivered to employees’ homes. For many companies, that was also a nice gesture to help support their employees during these difficult times. We were able to deliver as many as 25,000 virtual lunches that way in 2020. At the moment, we make deliveries to 400 companies. The hybrid way of working, both delivery to the office and to employees’ homes, is set to continue. People want to keep eating healthy and good food one way or another.”

How sustainable are you?

“We are 100 percent sustainable. There is one central kitchen, which helps us to keep costs down as much as possible. The kitchen’s electricity is generated by solar panels. We use filtered rainwater. For transportation, we use environmentally friendly vehicles, electric trucks and cargo bikes. We work with software that determines the best route. At present, we also use recyclable packaging. Our intention is to make our own reusable packaging in the future. We’ll wash it off and then reuse it”.

Are you planning to expand?

“We also plan to open a new kitchen in Antwerp and Ghent. By the end of 2022, we’re also hoping to go to Luxembourg. Then we want to expand to the north of Europe. We would like to become a European leader in our industry. We definitely want to be active in the Netherlands, Germany and France as well.”