Food on the move
New food delivery service for Port Moresby
Two Papua New Guinean entrepreneurs have started a food delivery service in Port Moresby. GoFood PNG picks up food from restaurants and delivers to customers across the city.
The co-founders are Eugene Anang and Samson Korawali.
Anang, who is also chief executive officer, says he identified a need for the service and enlisted Korawali to develop the technology to allow customers to place their orders online.
“Either they (the customers) didn’t have a car, didn’t want to go out again after coming home from a long day of work, or they didn’t want to go out at night for security reasons,” Anang says.
Korawali says customers are middle to upper-class Papua New Guineans and expats who work long hours and are looking for a service that can cater for their food needs.
The two entrepreneurs had to raise the capital to buy cars and motorbikes for the new service, and had to create an online local ordering system for Port Moresby.
Korawali says they had to be creative. They wanted to avoid borrowing from banks, which is notoriously difficult for small-to-medium enterprises in PNG.
“We are both entrepreneurs and own multiple small businesses, so we leveraged profits from our other businesses to pump capital into this new opportunity.”
Korawali says the aim of the company is to be the most reliable and convenient food delivery service in Port Moresby.
Twenty restaurants have signed up for the service and, earlier this year, the CPL-owned Stop N Shop supermarket chain, as well as Meat Haus, joined to provide grocery home deliveries.
GoFood has six staff, three cars and two motorbikes. Staff currently take the orders by phone or online and then the order is sent (by text message) to the respective restaurants.
They then go to the restaurants, pick up the food and take it to the delivery address. But the strategy is about to change.
“We are in the process of improving our technology so that all orders are done online without the phone calls,” says Korawali. “There will be no texting, and invoices are automated and sent to the restaurant so that everything is done online. “We want GoFood PNG to be the leader in this field, so we are also developing a mobile app. That is quite different to having a website. We want to get it right in Port Moresby first and have our strategy, structures, processes and management in place so that we can improve our services to our valued customers. “Then we can explore other opportunities in Lae and expand to Fiji or Solomon Islands.” Marketing is done by social media. “Social media will play a key part in our marketing strategy and I am hoping to bring on more people to help us market through digital platforms. “Social media is having a huge impact on the life of Papua New Guineans,” Korawali says.
We want GoFood PNG to be the leader in this field, so we are developing a mobile app.