Smartmat

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Smartmat

Food packets

Limited company

Belgium

www.smartmat.be

customer service, convenience, quality

Séverine Debecker

Anthony De Clerck

Anders Asarby

Summary

Smartmat is a company that delivers food packets at the customers’ doorstep after these custmers have subscribed or have placed an order online. Smartmat want the users to rediscover food and explore new flavors and ingredients.

Background

In 2012, Anders Asarby founded Smartmat. Mr. Asarby got to know the concept of placing an online order to purchase food packets back in Sweden, the country where he was born. The owner saw an opportunity to launch a similar project on the Belgian market. Thanks to hard work and passion for healthy and biological ingredients next the realization that it’s not always easy for people with a family and work to do groceries, let alone eat and cook healthy. Smartmat offers the consumer the possibility to rediscover food and lets the buyer get familiar with unusual flavors and ingredients. The company maintains this variety in food by altering the food packets on a weekly basis.

The company used a couple of months as preparation time to brainstorm on ideas and possible channels that could be used. During this preparation time, they could rely on the help of the Swedish company that shared some know-how. The initial start of Smartmat was financed by the founder but after a period of time several investors can to strengthen the company financially. At first achieving financial resources through an external financial resources proved to be very difficult for the company. This because the concept of ordering your food online seemed dangerous and unnecessary to the consumer. They were not familiarized with the idea of placing this order and how it can easy people’s life. It was only after gaining some credibility and brand awareness that external investors started to believe in the company.

Mission

Smartmats mission is to give the people the experience and time to eat healthy. Parents or singles sometimes simply just don’t find the time to prepare fresh ingredients or simply lack inspiration to create a decent, organic meal. Smartmat wants their customer to rediscover different tastes and food by offering them an ever-changing food packet.

Vision

Like most companies, Smartmat aims to continue growing and exploring the market further on. However, it’s not the company’s purpose to grow out to be the biggest player in the market. The management desires to continue growing so they can reach more people and make them aware of the biological, fresh products, Smartmat has to offer.

Values

The main values that are carried out throughout the company are:

Consciously handling food
The ecological aspect
- Transportation of the food on natural gas
- The usage of bio products
- Reducing pollution throughout the process.
Diversity in the food packets
Customer service and convenience

Business Model

Like previously mentioned, the founder of Smartmat founded the Belgian organization after being introduced to the Swedish alternative. This Swedish organization aided Smartmat during the first months of preoperational work. The first period after launch meant the search for customers, this because these potential clients needed to get familiarized with the concept and not doubt or avoid the online webshop of food.

The packets are being ordered by the customer by placing an online order where they subscribe to make use of Smartmats services. If the orders are placed, Smartmat will check in which quantities, the ingredients have to be bought . After that, the partner ‘VAWI’, receives a detailed list of what ingredients are needed for the different food packet. The food packets thus are being assembled with the ingredients VAWI receives from the specialized partners. These partners include fishmonger, pasta suppliers, suppliers for fruit and vegetables,… Once the food packets are finished, the distributors go and deliver the orders at the customers front doorstep.

Smartmat has some unique selling propositions that create a competitive advantage and make sure that Smartmat remains a respectable player in the market. Examples are the fresh and biologic ingredients that are offered at fair prices, Smartmat also focusses on customer service before, during and after the purchase, at last they are conducting their business activities in an ecologically friendly way to reduce their pollution and ecological footprint.

As a revenue model, the customer naturally pays online. The prices of the food packets fluctuate from week to week because of the different ingredients that are included in the packet. As everyone knows the price of food variates from one time to another. Smartmat thus makes use of the purchase price to form a selling price. After this the company adds a margin that covers expenses for the distribution, the assembly and other services.

To startup the company, no specialized organizations like FIT or Voka were consulted, this mainly because of the help from the Swedish alternative that already possessed a lot of knowhow. It thus is safe to state that the founder only consulted his own network to obtain help. Next to these personal contacts, some food specialists were hired to inform the company about handling and selling fresh and bio products. The rules concerning this matter are very strict.

Back in the day, the usage of internet and its convenience wasn’t as commonly and naturally used as it is today. Then there was an uprising trend to order your clothes online or purchase small items. Placing an order of food however wasn’t that popular at the time. After a while, customers started getting familiarized with the concept thanks to the usage of social media to create online brand awareness and through word-of-mouth that meant and still means the biggest form of publicity.

Growth

Like stated before, the company had to suffer some mistrust from the consumer because of the fact that they were a bit doubtful to order their food online. At the start of the company they had about ten clients, a small group that mainly existed out of friends and family of the founder. After a while the people started promoting the concept in their own network and the popularity of the company got bigger.

Customers

Smartmat aims to aid people that want to explore new flavors and tastes but lack the time to go shopping for fresh products to cook. The customers are mainly young families that simply don’t find the work or just people who want to enjoy a healthy meal with fresh ingredients.

Competition

The biggest competitors, Smartmat has to deal with is the well-known player: HelloFresh. However, in contrast to what many people think, this direct competitor was created after the foundation of Smartmat. Smartmat thus was the first company to offer this service of online food packets in Belgium. The company tries to differentiate itself from sort like competitors by offering fresh, biological products that share a higher quality than those from the competitors. Smartmat sees there competitors as an extra drive to keep on innovating and adapting.

Conclusion

The biggest opportunity for Smartmat lays in the fact that the company needs to continue focusing on implementing diversity in their range of product. If they manage to do that, they can offer more exclusive and unknown food and tastes to the clients that wants to explore something new. Mvr. Debecker also shared some pieces of advice for new starters, namely:

Surround yourself with capable and passionate people
Plan and evaluate your actions
Don’t be afraid to make mistakes, growing demands patients and time.

The biggest setback this company had to endure during the startup was the doubt consumers had about the internet webshop for food packets. Next to this, like most companies, Smartmat had a problem of a lack of sufficient financial resources. While talking about the company’s future, Mvr Séverine Debecker shared the company’s desire to grow out in the market of online food packets while never losing focus on the aspect of product quality.

Posted on 26/05/2016