JUST THE BIZZ: WHAT’S FOR SUPPER?

To be successful any business has to solve a problem. Diane de Villiers and her partners at the Daily Dish solved a big one: ‘What’s for supper?’

Daily Dish delivers the ingredients and recipe – you do the rest

Celebrated magazine doyenne Jane Raphaely once wrote: ‘What every busy woman needs is a wife.’ If anything, the pressure to do more and to do it better, and to be healthier and more together, has only become more relentless.

For many of us, especially working mothers, there simply isn’t enough headspace, and certainly not enough time, to plan, shop for, prepare and serve three healthy, made-fromscratch, balanced meals a day. Consequently we take short cuts: heat-and-eat meals in the freezer, takeaways, meals eaten in front of the television.

In 2012 Diane de Villiers saw a gap. The concept for her business was simply built out of the frustration of the last-minute dash around crowded supermarkets after a long day, being bored of the same old meals and an inability to avoid the takeaways sneaking into each week. As a result the Daily Dish was born, with a single menu that included such delights as Baked Angelfish & Bacon, Mushroom Stroganoff Bean & Beef Hash, and BBQ Chicken & Corn Rice. All the meal box options consist of four meals per week.

Growth since then has been the clearest possible evidence that Diane’s frustration was not isolated: the Daily Dish now has a subscriber base of 5 200 households. It offers Solo Boxes (for singletons, a single serving of four different meals per week), as well as options for two people or four people, and there’s a selection of boxes catering to different dietary requirements, including Banting, pork free, and veggie. The Banting Box has proved to be the most popular. Each week the chef designs four new Banting meals.

Each household receives a cooler box each week with all the fresh ingredients needed for four meals, along with the recipes. All you need to do is decide when to cook what. ‘One customer joked that Daily Dish had saved her marriage,’ Diane says.

The business sources its produce from local producers. ‘All our produce is fresh, never frozen and contains no preservatives,’ says Diane. ‘We buy our veggies from local farmers, our chicken comes from a free-range farm in the Elgin valley, our meat comes from a local butchery, and our cheese and dairy come from the Fairview Cheesery. We are always investigating new vendors and love to find small artisanal suppliers that put as much love and care into their produce as we do.’

Three years into the business Fairview approached Daily Dish about joining forces, creating an excellent supply relationship for the business. Fairview already supplies the wines and cheese; soon it will also be introducing free-range, farm-reared pork, beef and lamb and farm-fresh eggs.

‘Our customers are also asking for lunch boxes and weekend boxes, such as a Braai Box or Entertainment Boxes,’ Diane says.

Watch this space!