Choose two of the relevant marketing mix elements that are addressed in the Article. Discuss how the founders of My Supper Hero have used these elements to become more competitive in their market. 

 

Describe five external business environment challenges that might affect My Supper Hero's business model.

 

Article: 'Cooking up a chef-prepared storm in your own kitchen'

The veteran restaurateur Jamie Barber has watched his industry be hammered by lockdowns and, since being allowed to reopen, has struggled with a staffing crisis.

"Lockdown shook people's working habits up quite dramatically", he says. "There were a lot of people that went back to their native countries and decided to resettle there. And then there are a lot of people that have retrained and gone on to other jobs. There are chefs and waiting staff who feel that working restaurant hours, Monday to Saturday, [including] very late nights is not for them anymore."

Barber has been in the restaurant business since 1999, when he founded Hush Mayfair with the late Sir Roger Moore, the actor, and his son Geoffrey. He now also owns Hach Burgers, which has eight outlets, and Cabanas, a chain of five Brazilian barbecue restaurants. The latter, launched in 2011, had grown to 11 sites, but in 2018 began to retrench as underperforming sites were closed. Cabanas entered administration in 2019 and Barber acquired the five remaining London restaurants.

Undeterred by this setback nor the pandemic, Barber launched a food delivery business, My Supper Hero, late last year with his friend and co-founder, Myleene Klass, who is best known as a musician and television personality.

"I've been in the restaurant industry and surrounded by chefs for 20 years and lockdown was a bit of a shocker for us because suddenly we didn't have access to the kind of food that we have been used to eating," Barber, 51, says.

"I do most of the cooking in the family and I was cooking every day and the only alternatives at that point were Deliveroo and other [takeaway] delivery businesses, which are a nice naughty treat every so often, but not something you want to have on a regular basis. And we tried some of the recipe boxes but we found them very basic and very time consuming. You still have raw [ingredients] and there is a lot of work in putting those together. I thought there must be a way to eat really brilliantly at home in a very short amount of time without being a slave to the kitchen."

The concept for My Supper Hero is that the restaurant-quality meals are all pre-prepared by a team of five in-house chefs and then dispatched to homes, where they have to be reheated and served up. When Barber spoke about the idea with Klass she could immediately see the appeal. "I've got a blended family of seven and it can feel quite overwhelming on a Friday when I've got to cook for seven people. That's a lot for me when I've run out of ideas," she said.

Klass, 43, has also worked in marketing and branding for 17 years, having designed and launched clothing ranges with retailers including Littlewoods, Mothercare and Next. She is applying that experience to building a food brand, she says.

"I've started all of my brands from the ground up. I've never been the kind of person that just walks into a situation, grabs a cheque and disappears. I really take huge pride in making sure that I'm involved and understand everything from the production side of things to making sure the customer is looked after," Klass says. "Underestimate me at your peril."

She has also been very hands-on with the development of the food start-up's packaging. "So many delivery food services use excessive packaging and I didn't want our packaging to make me feel guilty and like we were contributing to the [waste] problem," she says.

"All of our packaging, even the plastics, are plant-based and are fully compostable. People ask, why we are making all these boxes? It's because the world has changed. People want different things from their food delivery services."

The pair, who are not at present taking a salary, raised more than 500,000 from angel investors to help them get started. Investors include Ed Woodward, the former executive vice-chairman of Manchester United. Barber anticipates that they will need to raise additional investment "in late spring or summer" to further fuel the business's growth. He said the volume of orders have been steadily increasing since the company launched 12 weeks ago.

The original plan had been to promote My Supper Hero to a local north London audience, "so we could really understand our audience and learn from a small data group". But as word got out on social media, especially in light of Klass's involvement, demand began to snowball and they now deliver nationally, twice a week. Popular dishes include a whole roasted sea bream, tortelloni of slow cooked beef and black truffle, and a truffle-roasted Suffolk chicken. Prices start at 13.50 per person, with a 15 per cent discount available for subscribers.

Barber said that while most customers were ordering once or twice a week, he is interested to see how behaviours adjust as life returns to normal. "There's a battle going on for what they call 'share of stomach'. It's the concept that people eat 14 meals a week and everybody in restaurants, supermarkets, meal kit businesses and takeaway delivery businesses are trying to find a way to get one of those slots a week."

It's a crowded market, but there are early signs that My Supper Hero is striking a chord with customers, he added. "There is a gentleman in Scotland that is ordering five kits a week and has been for several weeks. That gives me so much joy to think that this little thing that we thought about in a room in north London, is giving somebody pleasure hundreds of miles away."