GRUBie is an online marketplace where passionate cooks can make a meaningful income by selling their homemade food.
Our goal is to provide all households in the UK with the opportunity to experience genuine flavours from around the world. We believe that food cooked by passionate people in their homes, without the added layer of commercialisation that comes with restaurants and takeaways, allows people to experience the real authentic traditional flavours of any dish.
We are excited to be officially launching in London, Birmingham, Manchester, and Northampton from mid-January 2021. We welcome cooks from other areas in the UK to join and sell their food on GRUBie as we then roll out across the rest of the UK later in 2021.
How did you come up with the idea for the company?
Dee: Mehmet and I always wanted to start our own business. After being made redundant due to COVID in March 2020 I decided it was now or never. I started brainstorming ideas and the lockdown panic made it obvious food was one of the things people were still willing to spend money on (apart from toilet paper of course). I soon realised if people at home can sell food, this would solve many problems now – such as creating an addition income – and in the future, including getting a healthy meal when you’re out on a business trip (when they happen again!). I contacted Mehmet on the same day, and we started working on GRUBie.
Mehmet: As Dee and I both wanted to start a business for years, when he suggested the home cook platform idea we immediately started researching and decide to make this idea a reality.
Being health conscious, I felt there was no suitable place to get a takeaway delivered without feeling guilty and forcing myself to cook my own meals. This made me believe that there was a gap in the market which we could solve with GRUBie.
What advice would you give to other aspiring entrepreneurs?
Mehmet: There are two main things, the first one is just do it! Many potential entrepreneurs I know just do not make the move and procrastinate too much. You will not have all the answers at the start; we are still learning new things about our company and industry to date. You just need to jump in and give it a go – even if you fail you would have learned so much about yourself and gained many valuable life skills.
Secondly, work with likeminded people. Bouncing ideas and solving problems together helps you along the journey.
Dee: Believe in yourself, there are going to be doubters and naysayers, but if you are passionate about your idea, there is nothing stopping you.
If you run into a big problem, don’t give up. Break it down into smaller problems and solve them one by one.
Make sure your team believes in the idea just as much as you do, we are lucky to have Web Shop in Sri Lanka lead by L. Fernando and Marketing/PR lead by Chloe Walden to support us from the get-go.
What can we hope to see from GRUBie in the future?
We plan to integrate one or more delivery partners by June 2021, which we hope will allow more cooks to join GRUBie and increase their service radius. We believe in a healthier tomorrow and allowing freshly made home-cooked food to be ordered with a tap of a button is only the first step. To support the ongoing battle of carbon emission reduction, we hope to offer carbon-free delivery with our partners.
