Ken Judson’s food delivery app is a bid to help local restaurants stay afloat by avoiding costly delivery expenses.
Poised to launch in Moncton November 19, Chews Local will offer restaurants in Greater Moncton a cheaper alternative to the punishing fees associated with delivery services like Skip The Dishes and DoorDash, at a time when restaurants are operating within thin margins and still recovering from the Covid-19 pandemic.
Judson told Huddle that big-name delivery apps charge fees as high as 25 to 30 percent on every sale, and that’s not tenable in an industry that sees profits that hover around five percent.
“We put this company together with restaurants primarily in mind to keep them in business because paying 25 percent for delivery is going to put them out of business,” said Judson, a restaurant delivery company veteran of more than six decades.
“People are saying ‘what the hell are you doing this for?’ It has to be done–someone has to do it,” he added.
The secret sauce to Judson’s plan with Chews Local is an 11 percent charge for deliveries. That is accompanied by a $0.99 delivery fee, and a $9-per-month fee for the tablet delivery drivers will use.
Using a typical restaurant’s $20,000 a month in deliveries as a benchmark, Judson said Chews Local could save restaurants $26,000 versus the competition.
Judson, 87, said people were shocked to find him at the helm of another new business venture at an age most people are retired. But he said something needed to be done about the untenable pressure larger delivery companies are putting on local restaurants, in time when those services are needed to stay afloat.
Judson said that while larger chains can handle the generous cuts companies like Skip the Dishes and DoorDash take, “the more people buy up, the higher the prices go.”
He noted that, in addition to delivery fees, larger delivery services often impose hidden fees if certain conditions aren’t met–and those can quickly add up.
“The restaurant industry cannot afford to stay in business with the way it’s operating right now,” he said.
Judson said Chews Local’s business model will save restaurant owners between 10 and 12 percent on every product they deliver and will make restaurants partners, with the intention of giving 45 percent of net profit back to members in the form of a rebate.
Judson plans to start with a dry run before officially launching the service, through a fleet of 20 vehicles owned by AtDoorstep Delivery Service contracted to carry out the deliveries.
The dry run includes a handful of local restaurants and breweries, including Classic Burgers restaurants; Pump House Brewery; the Old Triangle Irish Alehouse, the Igloo Beverage Room and Five Bridges Bar And Grill.
Judson plans to bring on about 20 more restaurants once the service is running smoothly and wants to see between 50 and 100 restaurants join before launching in Fredericton, Saint John, and eventually Charlottetown and Halifax.
Judson said Chews Local will force the larger players to be more competitive and push down delivery prices, noting that he wants to build local-level cooperation between Chews Local and food service establishments.
Chews Local will take orders via an app developed by Sydney, N.S.-based Click2Order Software Solutions. The service is being pitched to the general public by a marketing campaign conducted by Hey Rebel Creative, a Moncton-headquartered marketing agency.
Judson, the former owner of Judson Foods, spent much of his career adjacent to the restaurant industry in food distribution – selling exclusively to restaurants.
He noted the original plan was to call the service Local Eats, but a California company had beaten them to it and taken the name.
“We wanted local in it, so we came up with Chews Local,” he said.
Sam Macdonald is a Huddle reporter in Moncton, a content sharing partner of Acadia Broadcasting.