Move over Just Eat and Deliveroo, there's a new kid on the block. Swansea Eats is a local food delivery app that was founded in 2021 by couple Sophie Heneberry and Rory Edwards after they noticed that big food app fees were "crippling" small independent businesses.
The app has only been running for a year, but it already has 12,000 regular users buying food from almost 100 independent eateries in the city. The app is similar to the popular RCT Eats app in Rhonda Cynon Taf, which also aims to empower small independent businesses. You can read more about here.
Read more: The husband and wife team running a food delivery app just for businesses in RCT
Company director Sophie, 30, from Birchgrove, owns Busy Bees nursery in Penllergaer, and when she isn't putting in the hours at the nursery, she's the "boots on the ground" for Swansea Eats. She said: "We founded Swansea Eats in April last year with two other friends after noticing how many businesses were struggling through the pandemic. We have a lot of family members in the hospitality industry - some own takeaways, one of them owns a restaurant.
"They use Deliveroo and have done for years, but the cost of that is crippling. It's very expensive, but they have to rely on these services because that's the way things are moving these days, everything is online. You don't find many people walking into takeaways or restaurants and placing their orders anymore."
Sophie said that a huge issue facing takeaways and restaurants is the 20% cut taken by food giants such as Just Eat and Deliveroo. She said: "It depends on the app you use, but on average, apps like Just Eat or Deliveroo take around a 20% cut. 14% is the minimum, but that's excluding VAT. It's hard because these businesses want to keep their prices low to remain competitive, particularly with the cost of everything going up. For a local business, a 20% cut is a huge amount."
Swansea Eats on the other hand takes a cut of 7.5%. " Our commission is 7.5%. Our hope is that it helps local independent businesses. We only list local businesses, the big giants are doing well enough without us. We want to enrich local communities and to keep money in Swansea, instead of shipping it down the M4 to Just Eat."
Since launching in April 2021, things have been going exceedingly well for Sophie and the rest of the team at Swansea Eats. She said: "Since launching in Easter last year, it's just spiralled. It's going really, really well. We have 96 restaurants and takeaways at the minute, and 12,000 users on the app. Naturally the first few months were touch and go, but we're steady now.
"It was scary when we first started because there were no guarantees that people would use the app at all. Developing an app isn't easy, either - it can cost hundreds of thousands all in all. We knew there was definitely a place in the market for the app, but it takes time to build up that trust with customers, since they need to feel confident that their payments are secure."
Swansea Eats only lists local independent businesses, and some of them are now exclusive to the app, such as Mad Buns. You can read more about Mad Buns, Swansea's favourite burger joint, here. "Some businesses can't afford to use Just Eat, and are getting enough turnover just through Swansea Eats. Another good thing about us is that we can deal directly with any issues, whereas with apps like Just Eat it takes days for a complaint to be dealt with, and the business can end up losing money because of it."
Both Sophie and Rory still work full-time jobs, and all of the money made from Swansea Eats goes straight back into the business. "Rory is an electrical engineer specialising in renewable energy. When he isn't away working on wind turbines in the middle of the sea, he's working behind the scenes of Swansea Eats. Luckily, we both like to be busy. When I'm not at the nursery, I'm the boots on the ground, speaking directly with restaurants. That's the part I have enjoyed the most - going out and meeting people in the community, people who I would never have met otherwise.
She added: "Once a restaurant is set up, there isn't a lot for us to do, it pretty much runs itself, unless there's an issue that needs to be dealt with or a menu needs updating. We aren't an intermediate, the restaurant has full control over how they want to deal with the situation with customers. It's a huge change from the nursery and teaching, but it's become my little baby, in a way. I've loved every aspect of it." To get the latest news from Swansea, subscribe to our daily Swansea newsletter here.
