Foodstuff has crowdfunds its way to £1m of investment in ethical diner delivery success

Foodstuff CEO and co-founder Toby Savill has told the Cambridge Independent of his delight as the ethical food delivery company tops £1m for its Crowdcube fundraiser.

“Cambridge has been bootstrapped so far and now is the time to grow up and become a household name so we can overtake Deliveroo and Just Eats,” Toby says.

Fighting talk, so how will the people’s preferred independent, sustainable, fair-wage delivery service spend the money?

“For the next six months we’ll be contributing back to our existing customers in Cambridge, Bristol, Manchester and Edinburgh,” Toby replies. “Then, within the next 18 months – possibly 12 months – we’ll be opening in four new cities: London, Leeds, Liverpool and Cardiff, starting with Cardiff in mid-2023.

“The big three things about Foodstuff,” Toby adds, “are that we offer the best rider welfare in the industry and a guaranteed living wage, every delivery is zero emissions, and we only support quality independent food providers.”

Foodstuff was launched in May 2020. The courier-friendly business model means the delivery team are paid by shift, regardless of how much work they do, which takes their wage up to a living wage – unlike some, notes Toby.

“The Deliveroo model is you work when you want, and you get paid less than £3 an hour. We have shifts you sign up to and you get paid a guaranteed living wage, so it’s a slightly more ethical approach to industry.

“Where they take deliveries from any restaurant, we do research. We’re offering something a bit more premium – good food, and a lot of our customers order across lots of different restaurants because they trust us and feel more freedom to explore the local food community.”

“Foodstuff currently provides a service to 220 restaurants and eateries in four cities, of which 30 are in Cambridge, and we have 60 riders in Cambridge working on contract.”

The Crowdcube campaign (currently at £1.089m) runs to the end of August.

“It’s great what’s happening on Crowdcube, the momentum is behind us, so let’s see how far we can go,” Toby concludes. “We raised our base requirement, if we can jump any closer to the £2m mark we can bring our roadmap forward, grow our team, build our technology – and we don’t need to wait.”