New e-commerce platform Butterware aims to boost UK catering industry
Catering firms and sandwich shop owners across the UK will soon be able to take a bigger slice of the estimated £4 billion sandwich market using a new cloud-based e-commerce platform developed by a team of scientists and engineers.
Known as Butterware, the platform makes it possible for firms to take advantage of the considerable surge in online sales and accurately predict demand for their products. Firms are able to tailor their products via a bespoke and fully supported e-commerce website designed by Butterware, as well as access built-in reports, newsletters, recommend-a-friend schemes and vouchers.
Managing director, Graeme Simpson, explained: “Lunch-to-go as a concept seems easy enough, except that it is almost impossible to accurately predict demand.
“By creating an easy to use, fully integrated e-commerce platform, sandwich shop owners and catering companies are not only able to build brand awareness online, but actively reduce the huge amount of food that ends up in our bins.”
Butterware is now looking to raise an additional £200k in seed funding as part of its expansion plans via crowdfunding platform, Seedrs.
The investment will enable Butterware to grow its existing customer base and extend its software and marketing capabilities.
Simpson added: “The benefits our platform brings to the catering industry are significant. By opting to raise equity through crowdfunding – i.e. whether you invest £10 or £10k – we are able to involve both those businesses who get to benefit from the improvements in sustainability and the end clients who benefit from being able to place their orders online.”
The system is simple: the custom-branded online ordering websites allow lunch-to-go businesses to take orders for collection or delivery, for individual orders or buffets.
The platform aims to help improve firms’ overall efficiency, reduce wastage and increase revenue, as well as providing a more modern service to customers. In turn, customers can have their lunch delivered, or arrive and collect it without wasting part of their precious lunch break queueing, ordering and paying.
According to Butterware, potential investors can expect to enjoy a compound yield of 12% per year over a five year period.
