The Times - UK (2020-07-27)

the times | Monday July 27 2020 1GM 43

Business

A surge in demand for recipe food
boxes has prompted Gousto to create a
thousand new jobs after doubling sales
since the start of the year.
The British-based business was
founded in 2012 by Timo Boldt, a
German-born entrepreneur who ran
the company from his student flat. It
has already hired 400 new workers this
year.
Gousto is selling five million meals a
month and sold more meals in the first
six months of this year than in the
whole of last year. It is expected to un-
veil a maiden profit this year, compared
with an operating loss of £12.5 million
last year.
Mr Boldt, 35, said that the business
planned to triple its capacity by 2022
and that it had benefited from the
switch to online shopping during the
pandemic.
“The UK recipe box market has come
of age, with the recent lockdown
accelerating structural trends that were
already firmly under way,” Mr Boldt,
right, said. “We have maintained record
sales, even with the progressive easing

Gousto puts 1,000 new jobs on menu

Ashley Armstrong Retail Editor of lockdown restrictions, and view this
shift as part of a wider permanent
redrawing of the grocery landscape.”
As well as attracting new customers
to its website, existing customers are
buying more meals as many people
have avoided eating out in the past
three months.
The business changes its
option of 55 different
recipes — such as
spicy hoisin pork
with ginger and
sesame veg or
BBQ chicken faji-
tas — every week.
Mr Boldt said that
they were priced
at £2.98 per meal
per person, al-
though most recipes
serve two or four.
“Most people want vari-
ety and we have the widest
range of meal options on the
market,” he said.
Gousto has raised a further £33 mil-
lion from investors that already include
M&C Ventures, Unilever Ventures, the
Business Growth Fund and Joe Wicks,

the celebrity personal trainer who has

found a new audience in the pandemic

running virtual fitness classes. Mr

Boldt said that the business was

planning to hire predominantly tech-

nology-based staff to build extra capa-

city on its website. He said that the

business expected to benefit if

the country entered a deep

recession, as “the share

of home cooking

market tends to rise

as people cut back

on eating out”.

Gousto faces

competition from

rivals such as

Mindful Chef and

Hello Fresh. Su-

permarkets includ-

ing Asda, Marks &

Spencer and Morri-

sons also have started of-

fering meal boxes, but Mr

Boldt said he was not concerned

because it remained a “challenge for

them to make it profitable”.

During the pandemic Gousto also

has provided meals to food banks and

Shelter, the homeless charity.

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Over 400 Travelodges in

line for Ibis name change

Katherine Griffiths

Hundreds of Travelodge hotels could

be rebranded as Ibis hotels as the

chain’s landlords seek better terms.

The landlords could switch to a new

hotel operator because of a break

clause in leases that was negotiated

with Travelodge’s hedge fund owners

last month as part of a company volun-

tary arrangement that cut the chain’s

rent.

A string of hotel brands, including

Accor, Marriott, Intercontinental,

Hilton and Jurys Inn, have been cir-

cling Travelodge since the coronavirus

outbreak in the hope of snapping up its

sites. The Travelodge Owners Action

Group, which claims to represent more

than 400 Travelodges, said that Accor,

of France, had been selected as the pre-

ferred brand partner.

If the landlords go with Accor,

Europe’s biggest hotels operator, the

hotels would be rebranded under its

budget Ibis name.

Lionel Benjamin, a hotelier who

helps to co-ordinate the action group,

said: “Accor’s brands command a rate

premium and provide wider distribu-

tion.”

Travelodge is Britain’s second biggest

budget hotel chain, with 574 hotels in

the UK and 16 in Ireland and Spain. The

CVA allowed the chain to cut its rents to

counter the effects of the lockdown and

did not involve closures. Travelodge’s

owners are Goldman Sachs, Avenue

Capital and Golden Tree Asset Man-

agement.

The action group said that Accor’s

offer included equity stakes in a new

platform that would take over the

hotels for incoming Travelodge land-

lords and “significant profit participa-

tion”.

An alternative proposal has been put

forward by the new budget hotel opera-

tor Goodnight, which has teamed up

with Village Hotels. The new brand has

said that it has indicative commitments

from landlords of more than 50 Travel-

odges and expects to launch with at

least 80 from January 1.

usage. The e-scooters are “free-float-
ing”, or undocked, unlike the Santander
“Boris bikes” in London, meaning that
you need the GPS on the app to locate
your nearest scooter.
Operators typically sign up to con-
cessions with local authorities, where
the quid pro quo is that the operators
invest in street and cycle lane infra-
structure.
Despite London being the great prize

for overseas companies coming in, the

capital also will be the most compli-

cated. Transport for London has to

coalesce with the capital’s 33 boroughs

if usage is to be universal. Some, such as

Kensington & Chelsea, are known to be

against them, not least over concerns

about increasing street litter, in which

undocked electric bikes have been

dumped on pavements.

The operators know that it is in their

interests to educate their users to park

scooters responsibly in designated

areas and some are making commit-

ments to use GPS data to intervene and

clear undesirably located scooters. Yet

the nascent industry also bridles at the

criticism. “People do complain, but we

would say that cars are littering cities,”

Mr Leuschner said. “We want cities to

use their space better.”

If a better urban environment is

the goal, safety has to be the priority.

To that end, the Department for

Transport has demanded that users in

trials hold a driving licence and are

insured in the event of road traffic

accidents. The speed of the rented

e-scooters is limited to 25km per hour,

or 15.5mph, and the machines are

power-capped at 500 watts.

This, though, is where the anomalies

and contradictions creep in. No de-

mand for licences and insurance is

made for electric bikes — rented or

privately owned — just as there are no

such obligations on cyclists, who can

travel at far in excess of the 15.5mph

limit and among whom responsible

road use by some appears to be neg-

ligible.

Similarly, in the rapid opening up of

the market no one is quite certain who

is responsible for the enforcement of

responsible e-scooter usage extending

to drinking-and-scooting. Is it the

police, local authorities or the compa-

nies?

Emma Silver, European head of

public policy at Bird, the American

operator, told a recent parliamentary

inquiry that black and Asian people,

women and younger members of

society were less likely to have drivers’

licences and therefore would not be

able to participate in the trials. And, as

in the world of cycling, any mandatory

wearing of helmets would put off some

users.

“We don’t want to put up barriers,”

she said. “It will reduce usage and that

will defeat the object.”

in Venice Beach, Los Angeles, but critics of the devices fear that Britain will suffer like Marseilles, France, above left, where the scooters have been dumped in the sea

China in the fast lane

When liberalisation of the electric

scooter market in Britain arrives, it

will be the Chinese that will lead the

way in plugging in (Robert Lea

writes).

The market-leading manufacturer

is Xiaomi, a Beijing-based consumer

electronics company, whose

bestselling M365 machine retails at

£570. It has a range of 27 miles and

a five-hour recharging time. It is also

an investor in Ninebot, which

acquired Segway, the eponymous

American manufacturer of the now-

rarely seen two-wheeled stand-up

vehicle. Its bestselling Max G30

retails at £790, but comes with a

battery-range of 40 miles is

significantly heavier.

Both Lime and Bird, the American

e-scooter rental groups, use Xiaomi

and Ninebot machines. Tier, the

German operator that is mobilising

in the UK, has developed its own

scooter with Okai, based in Zhejiang,

south of Shanghai.

The biggest argument to rent

rather than buy is the weight of the

machines, which is upwards of 15kg

and which makes them challenging

to carry on public transport —

commuter trains, for example — or

into the workplace.

MARIO TAMA; GERARD JULIEN/AFP VIA GETTY IMAGES