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Social Enterprises and Spoonfed - the system for sustainable catering growth

January 19, 2024

Social Enterprises across the world are using Spoonfed software to manage corporate catering services and increase their revenues, helping them give more to good causes while employing people in need.

Harry and Meghan at Social Bite

While you might be aware that Spoonfed has seen international uptake from Independents, QSRs and contract caterers, you may not know that we also offer a discount to social enterprise caterers, and we're seeing real growth in the market. Espresso Train in Brisbane, Shine in Leeds and New York’s Project Renewal are among the latest to enjoy the improved efficiency that comes with using Spoonfed.

Catering Management with Spoonfed

Tapping into the corporate drive to contribute to social causes, charitable enterprises are finding catering delivery services to be an increasingly important way to help local communities. Profits from delivering meeting room food enable them to offer financial aid, while they provide local people with employment and a chance to learn new skills.

And technology is playing a major part in the change. Non-profit companies around the world are looking to Spoonfed’s catering management system in search of ways to improve efficiency and help in the running of their drop off catering services.

1000% growth in 6 months… and still growing

Scottish non-profit retail chain Social Bite saw the benefits of adopting a system first hand as one of the earliest adopters of Spoonfed’s catering management software. With all profits going to initiatives that help the homeless, it was important that they adopted the right system first time, and avoided losing revenues that were going to good causes.

It was clear that a new system was needed, as Social Bite was using pen and paper and several different email addresses for corporate catering orders - a system they found inefficient and unreliable. Manually recording and transferring information limited growth, as some customers received late or incorrect orders.

After starting with Spoonfed, they saw monthly corporate catering revenues grow from £7,000 to £70,000 in six months, and growth has continued since then. This was partly possible as customers could order online rather than wait for a member of staff to be free to receive their call, but Social Bite’s success was as much about handling the growth as it was about obtaining it. With the ability to automate each step of the way, they used Spoonfed to improve their service even as demand for food skyrocketed. Part of this revenue growth also came from improvements to the customer journey. With a convenient online ordering experience displaying extra items at key moments, Social bite saw a 25% increase in the average order value.

Social Bite Tweet

Charlotte Turner, Social Bite’s Head of Corporate Catering, says "Moving to Spoonfed over 3 years ago completely transformed our company, taking us from a small caterer to one of the nation’s leading catering businesses.

“Spoonfed takes into account our customers’ experience as well as our own and thanks to the simplicity of using the system, we have freed up more time for our staff to focus on the customer journey and as a result we continue to grow - in 2017 we grew by 22%."

The Spoonfed journey

This new uptake of the software by social enterprises has been welcomed by our Co founder, Willie Biggart: “Whilst it is great that the system has been adopted by large food service management companies and small independent sandwich chains, we are absolutely delighted that social enterprise caterers have shown a real need for our system.

“When we started Spoonfed we knew that it would help caterers, but we didn’t appreciate the vast number of organisations out there that use corporate catering to do good in the world, either through employment or by directing their profits to a good cause.

“Corporations offering meeting room food to guests are increasingly looking to social enterprises for catering, and this trend has helped a lot of people. We’re excited that Spoonfed can be part of the change.”