Fancy a home-cooked meal but have no time to make it yourself? South Africans now have a solution for a better, healthier lifestyle. Simply order a meal from someone who lives close to you and pay with the tap of a screen.
Wazupa, connects ‘Home Chefs’ to ‘Grazers’, those who like to eat, and creates a convenient location-based marketplace. You can collect your meal or have it delivered for a fee.
Grazers can get delicious, quality home-prepared food by going onto the app and checking what each home chef has available. They can select, order, decide to collect or request delivery and make payment.
The app uses a rating system for each chef. Until recently, Wazupa was only available in Joburg and Pretoria where it was piloted, but it is now available nationwide.
Users can order any food type from banting to dairy free, Asian to seafood, halaal, kosher or vegetarian.
Lance Baum, CEO of Wazupa explains his inspiration for the local innovation. “When my wife had a baby, our friends used to drop off home cooked meals. I found it so exciting to try someone else’s delicious food in my own home. I realised that it’s also a tremendous opportunity to help people to do what they love and be able to earn a secondary income from it. People want to eat healthier, and we can help remove the guilt of junk takeaways, as many of us are just too busy. Wazupa can help get families around the table at meal times again.”
The Wazupa platform allows South Africans to set up their own food businesses by simply creating a profile and then setting out menu items by photographing and pricing their best dishes. Each chef can also specify working hours. Wazupa earns 15% off the retail selling price of the transaction, but carries the credit card and other processing fees.
The recently launched app has seen tremendous interest and growth. Since it became available in July, it has already activated 150 chefs and more than 650 grazers. Over 2 000 menu items have been loaded.