High-end meals arrive at door

Diners across the country no longer have to daydream about meals from the best restaurants in Auckland, thanks to local meal delivery service Meez.

The small business delivers food prepared by top chefs in restaurant kitchens to customers around the North Island, who complete and eat the meal at home. It has plans to expand into other centres soon, including in the South Island.

Meez co-founder Arthur Crawford says the idea came during lockdown when he saw many high-end restaurants left out of meal delivery services because their food was too intensive to prepare at the whim of online orders.

So Crawford teamed up with his friend, Joe Scott, to create Meez, a platform that allows restaurants to deliver meals to homes without compromising on taste or quality.

When Meez launched in January, things were ‘‘hectic’’, after five restaurants signed up in quick succession. Crawford and Scott were taking orders, picking up and delivering the food themselves.

There are now seven Aucklandbased restaurants on the platform, including Metro Restaurant of the Year 2021, Cazador, and other local favourites Gemmayze Street and Esther.

In the coming weeks a further 10 to 12 restaurants will also join the platform, Crawford says.

Since the business began, revenue has continued to grow 10% month on month. So far, restaurants have seen more than $150,000 revenue from sales through Meez.

Crawford says the secret to the success has been a different kind of approach to meal delivery.

‘‘Most meal delivery services arrive lukewarm, sloppy, and the kind of thing you don’t mind eating on the couch. We want to create a more meaningful home dining experience, something that you might light some candles for,’’ Crawford says.

Meez meals are ‘‘around 90% preprepared’’ at the restaurants and placed in climate-controlled packages that are delivered to homes overnight.

The business is attracting a different sort of customer to those wanting a fast meal, with more than 50% of customers choosing to book meals for times more than a week in advance of the order date.

Crawford says the system is designed to provide restaurants with the alternative stream of revenue that meal delivery provides, without having to compromise on quality.

‘‘The restaurant experience is going to be here forever. What we are trying to do with Meez is provide a revenue stream for restaurants that will last through the future, and can cover those fixed costs that restaurants always have when they are not able to operate as normal,’’ he says.

Meez makes money through commission, which ranges between 20% and 25% depending on whether the restaurant packages the food or not.

But Crawford says because Meez supplies restaurants with boxes, ice packs and climate-controlled packaging the business’s real profit sits between 12% to 15% per sale.

Meez delivers to Auckland, Hamilton, Tauranga and Wellington and is aiming to deliver nationwide, by mid-June.