Housebites.com recently launched a new service called ‘pretend you cooked’ that allows customers to pretend they have slaved away at a hot stove more convincingly by delivering dirty pans alongside the food. Cooked by a professional chef and delivered to your door, Housebites main courses cost on average between £10 and £12, and now for an additional £5, customers can request the pans used to cook them for added authenticity. Collection of the pans is then arranged as easily as the original delivery slot.
We posed a few questions to the CEO and founder of Housebites.com, Simon Prockter, to find out more about the new service and the business as a whole- read as we talk dirty pans and celeb fans with the man who's changing the face of the humble takeaway.
How would you describe Housebites to our readers that might not have heard of the service?
Housebites is a reinvention of the takeaway. It allows customers to order high quality meals from experienced chefs in their area. It’s a simple system, customers visit Housebites.com, enter their post code and view menus for chefs cooking in their area. Then customers just place their order and pick a time slot to suit them when it'll be delivered.
We think Housebites is a great concept, what was the inspiration behind it?
Bad takeaway. The sector hasn’t changed in years. Bulk cooked, oily food, delivered cold and late. We wanted to make takeaway an experience and at the same time solve the problems with existing takeaway. So with Housebites you know exactly who is cooking your food – you can see their biography and what others think about their meals. You have a menu choice you won’t see in any other takeaway. Portion sizes are great and delivery is done with a smile and usually with a free treat in the bag.
What is the correct Housebites etiquette, do you encourage tipping for example?
It’s entirely up to the customer whether they tip or not but our delivery guys and chefs don’t expect anything. We recommend instead of tipping to use our ‘Round Up My Order’ button. When a meal costs say £14.60, we encourage our customers to round it up and that 40p (+ GiftAid) goes to Action Against Hunger. That way when feeding yourself you can feed someone else at the same time.
Is the service exclusively London based at the moment and do you see this service going nation wide?
We are recruiting chefs throughout the country and aim to be operating in Birmingham, Brighton, Bristol, Edinburgh, Glasgow, London and Manchester very soon.
How do you vet your chefs to ensure great quality food is delivered to your customers?
We choose creative chefs with experience at a high level. We’re very proud of our very diverse range of chefs. To create exciting food, you need to have innovative chefs with a wide array of culinary inspirations. We have chefs from all over the world who have trained in Britain and also internationally. It’s this richness of experience that we look for in our chefs.
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| HouseBites.com Chef Alice Feaver |
Do you have any celebrity foodie fans?
Yes we do, we’ve had Lily Allen and Stephen Fry tweeting about how much they loved Housebites. Brighton based Zoe Ball is also a fan of us. It’s always great to have positive recommendations from people in the public eye.
We love the 'pretend you cooked service', what's next for Housebites?
Who knows - it depends what our customers want. We recently launched Housebites Plus, which offers a bespoke catering service. Our chefs have catered for Board Meetings and picnics and we’re currently quoting on some weddings. We’re also launching cooking lessons next month.
We presume you use the Housebites service, do you have a favourite chef in your area?
All of our chefs are excellent and produce beautiful dishes, so I couldn't possibly pick a favourite.
We hear you are somewhat of a serial entrepeneur, have you got anything new in the works?
Housebites is my focus at the moment, but there is so much we can do with the brand so you can expect a few new businesses to come out of it very soon. I previously founded SpeedDater and Adventura but I’m happiest creating new things.
Many thanks to Simon for answering our questions!
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