Home office for chefs?

During the coronavirus pandemic, many restaurant workers are struggling with existential fears. The two founders of HomeMeal (previously: HomeMealDeal) wanted to change that. In mid-2020, they founded their start-up, which enables chefs to work from home and sell their dishes to customers via an app. In this interview, Martin Schmidt and Mario Dugonik tell us how this works, how they want to revolutionize the food market in Berlin and throughout Germany with their idea and who they would like to go out to eat with in their private lives.

How did you come up with the idea of founding your start-up?

In April 2020, many of our friends lost their jobs during the pandemic in the catering industry. So we asked ourselves how we could help these people. The obvious solution was to create a home office for chefs or to enable the preparation and sale of dishes from the chef's own private home. Of course, everyone thought we were crazy, something like this was unthinkable in Germany until then!

On the consumer side, we carried out an extensive MVP experiment with around 100 customer interviews. Migrants told us that in Berlin restaurants, food from the respective national cuisines is modified for the mainly German target group and that the authentic taste of their home country cannot be found in Berlin. Until then, the only solution was to cook the dishes themselves or to know the authentic recipes, procure the exotic ingredients and sometimes invest a lot of time in the preparation. A real problem for foodies and immigrants!

So we had a problem on the chefs' side and a problem on the consumers' side. Our concept with a strong focus on high quality and authentic dishes from all over the world at affordable prices solved the problems on both sides! A business idea was born!

What is your mission?

The revolution of gastronomy! We see ourselves in line with companies such as Uber and AirBnB, which have led entire industries into the future. We want to give talented chefs the opportunity to open a business with their own passion and without large financial investments and run it profitably. Flexibility, self-determination and creative freedom are at the top of our agenda. Our partners can use their own resources to build something big and bring the culinary knowledge of their parents' home to Germany's major cities via HomeMeal. The labor market has limited opportunities for people without German language skills or single mothers, for example. We create new opportunities and help our partners to have a fulfilling professional life!

We bring the authentic homemade culinary diversity of the world to the market! Even dishes that are not available on the market due to a lack of mass appeal. High quality and healthy thanks to the use of fresh ingredients and small quantities.

What were the biggest challenges you had to overcome at the beginning?

The biggest challenge by far was the legal implementation of our business concept. On the one hand, we had to develop a hygiene concept that offers maximum safety for the consumer and complies with all legal requirements, despite having private kitchens. On the other hand, trust had to be created with the authorities for this new approach.

It took many months and hundreds of discussions with various authorities and politicians to ensure that this challenge was dealt with properly. In December 2020, the time had finally come and we were given the opportunity to demonstrate our hygiene concept in the market - specifically in Berlin Tempelhof-Schöneberg. We now also operate in the Berlin districts of Mitte, Friedrichshain-Kreuzberg, Neukölln and Charlottenburg-Wilmersdorf.

The legal basis for our hygiene concept is the Food Hygiene Regulation applicable to the European Union, which makes us scalable for the entire EU area.

If an investor were to provide you with 250,000 euros, what would you do with the money?

In June, we were able to win our first strong lead investor for our vision and now have sufficient financial resources for the next major milestones. As there are currently no competitors in German-speaking countries, we are pursuing a growth-oriented strategy with short intervals between financing rounds and the big goal of being represented in all major European cities by 2023.

By our next financing round, we will have expanded to Cologne, have over 150 chefs on the platform and be able to offer a delivery service. Our strong growth of around +100% per month in the first 6 months after release was generated purely organically or driven by major media appearances (e.g. Pro 7 Galileo) and word of mouth. In order to maintain our ambitious targets, we will be making targeted investments in marketing for more chefs and consumers over the next few months. Another important point is to strengthen the core team to optimize the Android/iOS app and business processes.

Can anyone register with you as a chef or do they have to prove their skills first?

In principle, anyone can become a chef on our platform. However, we have a waiting list of over 300 candidates for Berlin alone and therefore only try to accept chefs who are 100% compatible with HomeMeal's positioning and guidelines. In addition to the specificity of the dishes, we require references that demonstrate quality and a sense of responsibility. We also have a strict hygiene concept, which the chef must fulfill in all respects. However, we firmly believe that quality, uniqueness and reliability are not tied to a chef's training and therefore every applicant gets a fair chance to become part of our platform.

Are your prices different from restaurant prices?

Our chefs can run a restaurant without having to pay rent for premises. These fixed costs are eliminated and are invested in the procurement of fresh ingredients and the quality of our dishes. Furthermore, we offer genuine authentic dishes from the home country of our chefs, which requires the procurement of special ingredients. Ultimately, we have similar prices to restaurants, but offer high quality and authentic dishes from all over the world. Nevertheless, we give our chefs the freedom to set their own prices, we want our partners to feel responsible for their own business and determine the optimal cost of the food themselves.

How do you manage to maintain hygiene standards at home?

First of all, the chef must fulfill the general legal requirements. This means obtaining a health certificate (Berlin: "Red Card") and acquiring extensive knowledge of food hygiene regulations. After these two training courses, the chef has the necessary foundation to be able to run a restaurant hygienically.

There must also be a strict separation between private and commercial food in storage and preparation. Our chefs need separate kitchen utensils and a second refrigerator to prevent contamination between private and commercial use. Furthermore, the kitchen must be thoroughly cleaned before commercial use and no other people are allowed in there during operating hours.

Another important point is the chef's business registration and communication of operating hours. This makes the chef visible to the food inspectorate and unannounced inspections can be carried out.

What's next for you after Corona, do you already have plans?

We will continue to offer our consumers dishes that would not be available on the Berlin market without HomeMeal. With our clear positioning on authentic and high-quality dishes, we will continue to provide our target groups of immigrants, foodies and young families with an appealing product even after the pandemic. The special nature of our offer compared to conventional delivery services is recognized by our customers and is reflected in the approximately 2,000 reviews of our chefs with an average rating of 4.9 out of 5 stars.

On the partner side, demand remains high. We enable maximum flexibility with your own business without major financial investment. We help our chefs to realize their own dreams with the prospect of great success. For example, we support our most successful chefs in renting a larger commercial kitchen in order to cope with the large volume of orders. This attractive opportunity for the catering industry is independent of the pandemic.

And since you're all about food and enjoyment, who would you like to have dinner with?

With Alvin Salehi and Joey Grassia from the American start-up Shef. The two founders are pursuing the same vision with Shef in the USA. Shef only made its big breakthrough a few months ago and the start-up is currently going through the roof. A dinner would certainly lead to very exciting and instructive discussions for both parties.

Thank you for the interview.

About the founders: Born in Slovenia, Mario Dugonik studied kinesiology in Ljubljana and sports and fitness management in Berlin. After holding various positions in the fields of kinesiology, fitness and nutrition, Mario decided to embark on a 15-month trip around the world. Charged with new energy, borderline experiences and formative impressions, he founded the start-up HomeMeal together with co-founder Martin Schmidt. Prior to this, he had already spent a year gaining start-up experience at the fitness start-up VAHA.

Co-founder Martin Schmidt previously studied communications engineering and had already gained several years of experience as the head of a hardware and software department before becoming self-employed with various projects abroad. In February 2020, Martin returned to Germany from Southeast Asia to found Homemeal. Born out of the problems that the coronavirus pandemic has brought to the catering industry, the two have developed a new and innovative concept that is revolutionizing the food start-up market.