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<\/p>\nWhat’s the plan for dinner tonight? If it involves cooking, it’s easy enough to find a grocery store to grab ingredients.\u00a0But if it’s some takeout or a sit-down meal, where do those who make food get their food?<\/p>\n
Many industries have seen advancements in tech revolutionize every aspect of execution and fulfillment, from automatically inputting orders to\u00a0tracking shipments, all without ever having to remember order numbers or balance spreadsheets. Not all industries are created equal though, and that\u2019s how ChefHero got its start.<\/p>\n
Saif Altimimi, along with co-founder Diego Fererra, started ChefHero to solve a problem discovered through a family member. Altimimi\u2019s uncle ran a produce supply company and one day he played a voicemail order request. Large restaurants would call his uncle and leave messages with orders. That day it was East Side Mario\u2019s calling for cases of potatoes and strawberries. There was no verification, no electronic orders, and no tech in site. It was pretty much all based on trust and prior relationships. Altimimi\u2019s uncle had to manually put\u00a0the order into QuickBooks and ship it out the next day\u2014his tech stack was a pen, paper and a computer that could run Excel.<\/p>\n
There are still many restaurants keeping track of their orders and product delivery via this archaic method that it\u2019s almost unbelievable that the majority of chefs and kitchen managers haven\u2019t either moved on to become highly-skilled data scientists.<\/p>\n
In 2018, Canadians will spend 30 per cent of their food budget on eating out, which will total an average of $3,600 each year for a family of four. All of this money spent each year, with no updates or disruption to the backend of things in sight. Altimimi knew something had to change.<\/p>\n
\u201cIt\u2019s not very obvious, but if you walk around downtown and you see these unmarked trucks, those are usually food suppliers,\u201d says Altimimi, CEO of ChefHero. \u201cThe idea was that all of these small suppliers have no tech, so let\u2019s become their backend and power that.\u201d<\/p>\n
ChefHero is a demand-focused platform that helps chefs, restaurateurs, and other cooks order exactly what ingredients and products they need, all within an easy-to-track system. It sounds simple enough, but nothing like this had really been done, so ChefHero started with the basics.<\/p>\n
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\u201cWith this market, the data is so fragmented, there\u2019s no easy way to search and consolidate,\u201d says Altimimi. \u201cThere\u2019s no Bloomberg terminal for avocados in Toronto.\u201d<\/p>\n
Altimimi\u00a0called his first platform VendorHero, then\u00a0pivoted to ChefHero once he realized the focus should be on the ones buying the product. Chefs and kitchen managers can use ChefHero as a supply network to order everything in one place, with one invoice, one payment and one order. Permissions can even be set, meaning chefs and line cooks can add to an order, but only the kitchen manager or someone else can check out.<\/p>\n
The real task for ChefHero was categorizing everything in the food world. There\u2019s so much lingo in the dining world that an entire dictionary could be written, so when it came to turning every food in a SKU, it proved rather difficult. For example, Royal Gala apples could have multiple names in any given restaurant: RG apples, Galas, dessert apples, or just apples. Repeat that for every cut of meat and vegetable and it gets more complicated. But almost everyone Altimimi approached embraced his vision.<\/p>\n
\u201cIf you look at the restaurant space today, there\u2019s Ritual, Ubereats and more that have paved the way for technology in kitchens,\u201d he says. \u201cFive years ago, this would all be hard to do. Now restaurants understand the value of tech on the frontend, but at the back of house, it’s all largely offline. When we talk to restaurants, they say why didn’t this exist five years ago?\u201d<\/p>\n
ChefHero\u2019s platform acts like a procurement team in\u00a0digital form. They can help secure more competitive pricing through a network of dedicated suppliers by streamlining the process and adding transparency. Customers have outlined three reasons they keep using ChefHero: live and updated pricing, as there have been reports of overpriced boxes of produce; selection, which includes everything from halal to kosher to AAA organic and more; and transparency, because with the old method, a box of lettuce may arrive half rotten,\u00a0prompting a chef to\u00a0mark the\u00a0shrink down with pen and paper and hope they get the credit back in 15 days when the\u00a0supplier arrives again.<\/p>\n
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\u201cThis is an industry where both sides inherently don’t trust each other,\u201d Altimimi explains. \u201cThere\u2019s always back and forth. Payments happen on terms and getting a credit back on items that are shorted or have quality issues can be really hard to do. Nine out of 10, they don’t match letters on both sides. We come in and simplify the process with transparency on pricing and invoices.\u201d<\/p>\n
With ChefHero, restaurants can see savings between 10 and 15 per cent, which is huge for an industry that historically boasts small profit margins. ChefHero\u00a0itself profits through a commission on the backend for suppliers, as they \u201cprovide value through additional demand, invoicing, customer service, and ordering, so there’s a margin on the supply side they can collapse,\u201d according to Altimimi.<\/p>\n
\u201cThe goal is never to market up and be more expensive on the demand side,\u201d he says. \u201cWe look at the demand and make sure it’s priced accordingly.\u201d<\/p>\n
Altimimi grew up in Waterloo with the rise of Research in Motion and became inspired by how something so massive could operate in his hometown. He was always doing something on the side, whether it was selling t-shirts or sealing driveways, so starting a real company was a no-brainer.<\/p>\n
He founded NoteWagon in 2010 while he was in university as a way for students to buy and sell class notes. Altimimi successfully pitched the company on Dragons\u2019 Den (but the offer fell through during due diligence) then moved to Silicon Valley for two years to grow and scale the company, eventually aquiring Notelog in 2012.<\/p>\n
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After that, Altimimi and his other ChefHero co-founder Diego Fererra worked in blockchain before having that fateful discussion with his uncle that led to the discovery of how antiquated the supply networks of restaurants were.<\/p>\n
The two struggled to find the best place to\u00a0base ChefHero but eventually settled on the downtown core of Toronto. It was between Altimimi\u2019s hometown of Waterloo and Fererra\u2019s hometown Scarborough, and the food service market was simply much bigger in Toronto than anywhere else, which meant more clients and business.<\/p>\n
For new startups that are growing rapidly, it can be difficult to place a huge emphasis on culture, but ChefHero has done so by making sure everyone who joins the company embraces a fast pace and rate of change.<\/p>\n
\u201cCulture means an alignment on value and outcomes,\u201d Altimimi says. \u201cWhat do we value as a company? Our DNA is high-velocity decision making and moving fast. We cannot operate like a large company, so our advantage is speed and experimentation.\u201d<\/p>\n
An initiative at ChefHero called Side Hustle lets employees work on small projects on their own that can then be integrated into the main platform. Altimimi explains that there\u2019s a few in the works right now that have huge potential as growth models, all of which stemmed from little ideas.<\/p>\n
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Every new hire also takes a trip to the Ontario food terminal with Altimimi, located on the Queensway in Toronto. A large nondescript white building, it is the hub for all food companies in Canada\u2019s largest city and the surrounding area. Altimimi believes it\u2019s important for new workers to see it.<\/p>\n
\u201cPeople often don’t understand where food comes from,\u201d he says. \u201cIt\u2019s eye-opening to see that chain of events and how the impact we\u2019re having on that side of the business is very important.\u201d<\/p>\n
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