Christchurch startup paves the way to ‘make corporate catering easy’
Think Booking.com but for catering: Christchurch entrepreneurs Mizuki Azai and Olexiy Meshechko have created just that. We had the pleasure of sitting down with these two ambitious individuals to discuss their new platform, Caterway, and its potential to change the traditional catering world as we know it.
Meet co-founders, Mizuki and Olexiy. With years of experience working as an administrator and event organiser for corporate organisations, Mizuki quickly became conscious of a gap in the New Zealand catering market. It was a daily struggle for her to find a variety of catering options for her team and guests based on their preferences, and she lacked a platform that allowed her and other team members to manage catering orders collaboratively. By contrast, Olexiy was one of the many people who assumed a catering platform like Caterway already existed — until he had the task of ordering catering himself and had no idea where to start. His expertise lies in software development, and together, their diverse skill set made for the perfect team to turn Caterway into a reality.
So where was the gap? These days online shopping is a normal thing — you can do pretty much everything online, from buying a second hand desk to importing a car from overseas. However, the catering industry was an exception to this (before Caterway). There’s a significant amount of manual administration involved for both the caterer and the customer and Mizuki and Olexiy sought out to automate and simplify this process, saving people valuable time.
From the corporate customer’s point of view, a more centralised ordering process is much more time efficient, and for individual customers who order food occasionally for private functions, the task of finding appropriate caterers and comparing options can be very lengthy. For caterers, time is everything — from finding new customers, promoting menus online, taking photos, making quotes, invoices, managing order records, etc.
“Saving time is important for caterers and customers”
The solution? Caterway: “an all in one platform for corporate catering.” Put simply, it’s a two-sided marketplace connecting caterers and corporate businesses. Customers simply browse the Caterway website, and pick a caterer for an event at no extra charge.
“When it comes to ordering catering, especially corporate catering, there is no such place for corporate customers to go and see everything in one place.”
Caterway eliminates the problem of managing a complex array of different catering suppliers by combining everything into one with a standardised ordering process. Additionally, companies can have multiple users on an account, allowing for flexibility if plans unexpectedly change, and customers only receive one invoice monthly, inclusive of all purchases.
“We know how passionate caterers are and how much love they put into every single dish they cook. Our platform helps caterers to free up more time.”
Although Caterway is automated, Mizuki and Olexiy assure us that human connections are not compromised. Mizuki explains — “corporate customers and caterers are not talking to IT, we have actual people behind so whenever something goes wrong or whenever they need help, we are here.” People can order by phone, or through a personal catering assistant function where they can send in details of their event in return for catering suggestions, free of charge.
“We are not just a website somewhere in the cloud, we are people behind the platform.”
Caterway’s journey started over a year ago, pre COVID. They performed extensive market research, involving many tests, flow charts and scenario experimentation. In the days leading up to the launch, they met with many caterers and corporate customers, explaining their idea and getting feedback so they could develop a platform that fits into their business flow. Mizuki and Olexiy strongly emphasise the importance of talking to your customers as an entrepreneur — “as many as you can and as soon as you can.” Despite the challenges that COVID-19 and the lockdown presented for their young startup, Mizuki and Olexiy used their abundant free time to further develop and perfect their business model, coming out the other side rather unscathed.
Currently, Caterway has a variety of Christchurch-based suppliers onboard consisting of mostly caterers, but not excluding restaurants, cafés, and bakeries. When asked about the advantages of starting up in Canterbury, they explained the extensive support they had received from caterers and UC organisations ThincLab, and the Ministry of Awesome, not to mention the many networking opportunities available to them.
“Everyone is so approachable. It’s so easy to talk to people and everyone is open to help.”
Caterway had hoped to be expanding into Auckland by the end of this year but COVID-19 has halted these plans temporarily. However, this has not closed them off to groups outside of Christchurch who organise catering for functions they are travelling in for. With a fast-expanding customer base, Caterway continues to impress with their new and efficient way of catering, positively reshaping the conventional catering processes.
For more information, visit caterway.nz.
Caterway has recently completed the ThincLab ‘SPRINT’ programme: to learn more about ThincLab’s options for founder and business support, visit www.canterbury.ac.nz/business/uce/thinclab/.
