Food Tech Startup Feedr Prepares For International Expansion Following £1.5M Investment

LONDON, United Kingdom — Feedr, an online marketplace enabling office workers to order nutritious food from London’s best artisan vendors to their desks, is getting ready for UK and international expansion.

Taking inspiration from the rapidly growing B2C food-tech space, which has been feeling the seismic impact of Deliveroo and Uber Eats, Feedr is looking to revolutionise the B2B sector, by providing employees with the healthiest food in London, at a lower cost than on the high street.

Companies have the option to fully or partly subsidise their employees’ food, allowing their staff to embrace healthy, fresh meals for under £5 per day while limiting the cost borne by employers.

With demand growing for greater workplace wellbeing for staff engagement and productivity, coupled with the rising trend for healthier eating habits, companies are recognising the need to better cater to diverse nutritional needs.

This is where Feedr has been able to capitalise. In the last year, the company has grown by more than 300% with 400 companies, including Airbnb, Etsy, Matches, DHL and PwC using the platform to subsidise healthier meals for their employees.

Last month Feedr announced a pre-Series A investment round of £1.535m, backed by Episode 1, the venture capital fund behind Shazam, as well as the founders of Wonga and OpenTable Europe, and the former Ladbrokes CEO.

London has provided the perfect ingredients to launch the business, however, Feedr’s two female founders are looking to use this investment to hone their business and lay the foundations for growth across the UK and internationally.

Riya Grover, Feedr’s Co-Founder and CEO believes there’s a huge market outside the capital that’s not being served as well as it should be. With her Co-Founder Lyz Swanton, she’s determined to change that in 2019.

“London is a fantastic first market for technology brands in the wellness space,” says Grover, who worked in sales at Deutsche Bank and marketing at PepsiCo before setting up Feedr.

“There’s a varied consumer base so you can really find your target market, plenty of other innovative brands to fuel a rich ecosystem of partners and of course great technical talent.

“That being said – we absolutely don’t think that either Feedr or other wellness brands should be confined to London. Consumers across the country are becoming more and more interested in wellness and healthy food, and we believe everyone should have access to high-quality food in their office on a regular basis.”

To date, few London-founded wellness brands have successfully expanded beyond the capital,
wary of a fragmented market and regional differences. Even established global behemoths such as Lululemon, F45 and Barry’s Bootcamp took their time to bed into the UK in London before launching in Manchester and beyond. But with London’s wellness market dominating the UK landscape, regional expansion will become increasingly crucial for long-term success.

Grover believes the key to successful expansion will come by fully understanding the nuances of each new market so they can be “nimble and adaptable” rather than simply providing a carbon copy of something that works in the capital.

“Our technology and approach to launching in a location is certainly replicable, but the challenges lie in understanding the nuance of each individual market, both in terms of who the best local vendors are and how people in each new city or country love to eat,” says Grover.

“For international expansion, we don’t worry about language too much, but there are definitely nuances of British customer behaviour that don’t necessarily translate in other cities.”

With each new launch, Grover says they plan to have people on the ground in each location to understand differences in willingness to pay, product preferences and distribution.

“Currently we’re focused on growing in London and investing in our nutrition and personalisation
software to deliver an enhanced product experience to the thousands (and growing) of employees already using us,” she adds.

“But we definitely plan to expand beyond London [in the UK and internationally] at the end of next year and will begin to lay the foundations for this in the coming months.”

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