How UK Startup DeButch Stimulates Local Economy By Delivering High-Quality Meat

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Emmanuel Osu, Founder & CEO of the online meat marketplace DeButch, explains the logistics behind delivering high-quality meat and the challenges that arise with it.

How would you describe DeButch in a few words?

DeButch is a one stop online meat marketplace that connects consumers with local butchers and farm shops.

What inspired you to create meat marketplace? How did it all start?

The horse meat scandal of 2013 was the defining point for me really. It exposed the broken nature of the supermarkets’ complex retail meat chain and the need to fix it. Prior to this event, I used to occasionally buy meat from the supermarkets but I patronized my local butcher most of the time because their meat was fresher and tastier. After the horse meat scandal, I stopped buying my meat from the supermarkets and went to my local butcher instead. However, I moved to a new neighborhood and had to look for a new butcher. It was during this process of searching that I realized the gap in the market for an online meat market and decided to form DeButch in 2015.

Food, especially meat, is highly valued not only as a necessity but a passion, meaning people looking to buy meat want to see the product before purchase. How do you handle this situation?

Some years ago it would have been unthinkable to buy meat online but there has been a paradigm shift in people’s attitudes in buying perishable foodstuff, including meat, online. The proliferation and success of food subscription companies such as Hello fresh, Gousto, and Blue Apron is proof that attitudes have changed and customers no longer have reservations buying meat online.

DeButch’s mission is to stimulate the local economy by providing consumers with high-quality meat. How do you make sure to keep this promise? Do you have regular appointments with your partners?

We are very selective when it comes to choosing our butcher partners, a number of our partners rear their own animals whilst others buy their animals directly from local farms. In fact, all our current partners are organic butchers, however, DeButch is NOT an ‘organic only meat market’. We are in constant touch with our partners to ensure that consumers get the best meat and services.

Meat delivery is a challenging task as it requires fast pace. With regards to logistics: which measures does DeButch take to maintain quality?

Our partners are no strangers to online meat orders and delivery. The meat is usually vacuum sealed and kept chilled with ice packs and then placed in cardboard boxes containing foam liners. The packaging ensures that the contents of the box remain at fridge temperature for a 34 hour period so that even if there was an unavoidable delay in the delivery of your order your meat will still arrive in perfect condition.

Are you using DeButch internally? How does that affect the viewpoints of the team?

Absolutely! Why should we use another platform for buying meat online? We are a small team and there are no contrary viewpoints. We are brand ambassadors for DeButch and we have to lead the way. Using DeButch gives us first-hand customer experience and allows us to assess how our partners perform in terms of quality and service delivery.

What is the biggest challenge that the company has faced?

It has been a roller coaster ride and there have been a number of bumps along the way, however, the biggest challenge was getting partners to buy into our vision and join our platform. Initially, most of the butchers we approached (and we approached a lot) were very skeptical and not interested. This was very discouraging but we did not give up and continued prospecting until we eventually signed our first partner, Manor Organic Farm. Signing another partner took us two more months. The good news is that now we have more partners, and more butchers are interested in partnering with us.

What is the most memorable moment throughout the history of DeButch?

That is a tricky one! There have been lots of memorable moments from designing and choosing our brand logo in 2015, to the development of our MVP wireframe and signing of our first partner, to launching our platform in December 2016, and making our first sale on the platform! Each moment was unique and euphoric in its own way. However, of all these moments, I think launching the platform in December 2016 was the most iconic moment for us. The project had faced a number of challenges along the way and to finally see it completed and deployed despite the challenges was a great feeling.

What’s one piece of advice you can give to fellow founders for their startup?

My single advice is this: it is easy to become discouraged when things get tough and challenges sprout along the way. There is the tendency to become despondent and sometimes the temptation to give up, however, you have to remain tenacious and focused on the goal. Do not give up and avoid burning yourself out, it is ok to take a break, rest, and re-strategize. As stated earlier, DeButch faced a number of challenges along the way and it would have been easier giving up then going ahead but we persevered and here we are today!

 

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