Toronto Food Startup Chefs Plate Now Delivering to New Brunswick, Maritimes
Toronto-based meal-kit delivery service Chefs Plate is now delivering to New Brunswick and the rest of the Maritimes.
Chefs Plate delivers weekly fresh, locally sourced ingredients and recipes to customers’ doorsteps to create an easy, healthy, hassle-free home cooking experience.
Chefs Plate’s co-founder Jamie Shea told Huddle that expanding into New Brunswick, Nova Scotia and Prince Edward Island was part of a bigger move by the company to expand east of Ontario.
“We launched the business about three years ago now and have been growing the business organically across the country and definitely seen a ton of demand from Canadians across all provinces. So as part of our plan, we always wanted to be a national brand and a national company. The East Coast was really the next market that we had yet to really grow the business. We saw there was a big opportunity and lot of demand there.”
Unlike other retail sectors, Shea says the grocery business has undergone very little innovation in the online space. This is a gap Chefs Plate is trying to help fill.
“The reality is there’s been very little innovation from the big grocers in the space and that’s really what spurred the idea behind the business as well as the growth we’ve been so fortunate to have. There’s nobody really delivering fresh products directly to consumers’ homes and there’s no doubt a need,” he says. “If you look at all other categories of traditional retail, whether it’s books, apparel, music … a lot of those categories have moved online, but food is really that last category that’s undergone that e-commerce transition. Yet, it’s one of the largest households spend on after mortgages and rent. “
The company officially launched in the region last month and Shea says traction in New Brunswick and the other Maritime provinces has been solid.
“Candidly, it’s gone a lot better than we’ve seen as we compare to launches in other markets. I think the reality is there’s not a lot of options for people living in New Brunswick to get fresh products delivered to their home,” Shea says.
“We’ve seen a really nice response and we’re seeing a lot of those customers continue to order week over week. For us, that’s a really strong indication and metric we look at early on to see how we’re resonating in the market.”