What’s for dinner? Decide with Daily Dish, the service that shops for you

Daily Dish is as a menu planning and grocery shopping service for “busy people” who want to eat delicious, cook-it-yourself food at home. We’d venture that it’s also a godsend for South Africans looking to improve their culinary skills.

Launched in September this year, Daily Dish allows “ordinary home cooks” to select dishes from a weekly menu; the ingredients and step-by-step recipes for these dishes are then delivered, same day, if the orders are placed before 10AM.

Daily Dish co-founder Diane de Villiers tells us that the service was born out of “pure personal frustration.” She paints the all too familiar picture of an after work mad dash in a crowded supermarket only to cook the same meals week after week.

Her search for a service that would deliver either fresh ingredients or home cooked meals yielded results, but she found them wanting. “Online ingredient shopping turned out to be a nightmare and ‘home-cooked meals’ looked worse than boarding school fare,” she says.

The dishes on offer are curated for taste and cooking time — 30 minutes or less — and mainly consist of vegetarian, beef, lamb, chicken or fish. Each ingredient is delivered in the exact quantity as ordered, which is a nice touch — no need to buy containers of an item when just a teaspoon is required, for example. The ingredients are sourced from major retailers like Woolworths, and smaller local suppliers alike, with a strong focus on quality. To start, Daily Dish handles all deliveries personally.

De Villiers has a history in online business having co-founded rock-star online personal finance manager, 22seven, and competition site JustPlay. She also co-founded RocketLab, the school for aspiring entrepreneurs that recently opened its doors in Cape Town. Previously, her advertising background and years as a senior business executive saw her sit on the board of Ogilvy & Mather.

The other half of the Daily Dish founding team is Jo-Pierre Lerm, a software developer who also co-founded JustPlay and previously worked with De Villiers at South Africa’s first online bank, 20twenty, the precursor to 22seven. Lerm is a South African currently residing in Izmir, Turkey.

Daily Dish is self-funded and has a transactional revenue model. For now, the service is being meticulously piloted in the greater Cape Town area and hopes to resonate with “knowledge workers, agency people, housewives and self catering holiday makers.”

Daily Dish is similar to UK-based Hello Fresh, but differs primarily in terms of its revenue model. Hello Fresh employs a subscription based model, something which De Villiers says might be worth exploring in future. Following rapid growth and backing from investors that invested in Facebook and Groupon, Hello Fresh is planning expansion into the US. Apart from My Chef, Daily Dish doesn’t seem to have any notable, direct competitors. Although De Villiers tells us that no international expansion is currently in the cards, she cites Dineasy from Ireland and Hong Kong based Secret Ingredient as potential competitors.

The service emits a strong sense of punctiliousness. From the mouth-watering site design, to the menu and service delivery, the polish here is evident. It also feels like Daily Dish is entering a nascent market that’s set for growth. It remains to be seen however, how the South African market will respond. Is a preconfigured selection the best approach, or should it follow a hybrid-model, also offering a wider array of distinct items? Service delivery, something which Daily Dish emphasises, could be a key differentiator.