PHOTOGRAPHS BY CASEY CRAFFORD MH.CO.ZA/ August 2019 77
Food For
Thought
SINCE ESTABLISHING THEIR ONLINE BUSINESS IN 2015, UCOOK
FOUNDERS DAVID TORR AND CHRIS VERSTER COHEN HAVE
LEARNT WHAT IT TAKES TO NOT ONLY SURVIVE BUT THRIVE IN THE
E-COMMERCE SPACE. HERE’S HOW THEY WORK TOGETHER TO BRING
HOME THE BACON – AND ALL THE SIDES, TOO. / BY MEGAN FLEMMITWEALTHD
DECIDING WHAT TO MAKE FOR DINNER
can be a frustrating process. Whether you’re
tired from a day of work, haven’t figured
your way around the kitchen yet or just
hate cooking, having to make dinner from
scratch can induce endless amounts of
anxiety and frustration.
But frequent trips to your local takeaway
joint are the enemy of gains. So to bridge
the gap between healthy food options and
convenience, David Torr and Chris Verster
Cohen launched meal-kit delivery service
UCOOK – with a whole lot of enthusiasm,
very little funding, and zero experience in
running a business.“I Think This Could Work”
David had used a similar service while living
in London, and thought it would be a good idea
to replicate the model in SA. His friend Chris
reckoned he was onto something.
“At the time, there was a need locally for
a healthy, convenient dinner solution,” says
Chris. “I was excited about the idea of building
a brand that would hopefully be aspirational
and admired by South African consumers.”
With no business experience to draw on, the
two were f lying blind; so they relied on good
old-fashioned logic, researching how meal-kit
services operated in other countries and what
the costs were. “We had to get some funding;
and that forced us to put together a robust
business plan that looked at the angles of the
business and did a sort of SWOT analysis,”
says David.