
Chowdy: Shutting Down a +$110,000/Month Food Startup - nicoserdeir
https://www.failory.com/interview/chowdy
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beerbajay
> we learned that it’s illegal to use home kitchen for commercially sold food

aka "we didn't do any research at all"

> we were inspired by Uber and Airbnb to just ignore the regulators.

Those pesky food safety regulations. These guys were extremely negligent and
should be glad they got out before anybody got sick.

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wycs
Yes. Keeping food in a fridge for 48 hours. What a crime.

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deleted_account
Take a look at one of their hubs:
[https://imgur.com/a/PQJB09X](https://imgur.com/a/PQJB09X). Maybe around 300+
meals stuffed in there? Back-of-the-enveloping the amount of time people are
opening and closing those doors, I'm a little dubious they're staying at
refrigerator temperature the whole time. I'm not surprised someone looked at
this and thought, "That's an e. coli outbreak waiting to happen."

~~~
wycs
The more full the refrigerator the longer it will maintain temperature.

~~~
noodle
That's only true assuming there's enough time for the contents to reach the
target temperature.

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imperio59
When I lived in New Caledonia growing up, we had a similar service which used
reusable food "boxes" that would get delivered to your front door or to your
work every lunch. It would be left on your door step and it was up to you to
grab it quickly and refrigerate it. This was in a tropical country. No one
ever got sick. Seems like regulatory overkill, especially in a place where
half the year the outside temperature is colder than most fridges.

(Link in French for those curious, it's called "la gamelle" and it's still
going strong today, albeit with throwaway plastic
containers.[http://lafamilletortue.com/gamelle-nouvelle-
caledonie/](http://lafamilletortue.com/gamelle-nouvelle-caledonie/) )

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mohi13
"with almost half quitting after the first week"...to me this sounds super
critical...no amount of funding or a partnership with even god him/herself,
can't make it work unless this is fixed.

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pcurve
Yeah he didn’t really talk about food and menu. 6 to 7 dollar per meal isn’t
anything to scoff at. It’d better be tasty on consistent basis.

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ckdarby
I'm wondering if they would have been able to convince the food regulators if
the fridges themselves had sensors and such.

Concept would be to create an audit trail of the fridge itself from the
sensors.

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natmaka
"The average lifetime of a subscriber was 9 weeks, with almost half quitting
after the first week.". I wonder if someone tried to find their reasons to do
so. He also notes that "consumers have no loyalty to food brands; they will
happily try a bunch and switch to another service if they can get a better
deal.", but knowing which criteria they use may be vital(?) The "lower price"
can't be their sole criterion when it comes to food they consume.

~~~
bdcravens
Having tried multiple food services, I've frequently tried because of an intro
price, discovered the quality was meh, and immediately quit after the first
week.

~~~
natmaka
Many test this way. Chowdy's food quality may have been not as high as
expected by (most/a too high fraction) of their customers.

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wycs
These people built a business that provided a lot of value and a bunch of
bureaucrats killed it because they didn’t like the thought of something being
in a fridge for less than 48 hours.

This is the message of these regulations: don’t try to do anything in the real
world. Solve only ephemeral, virtual problems.

This guy is working on a travel information app now. He has gotten the
message.

~~~
kencausey
I hear you but it sounds like the concern was that no one onsite with the
refrigerators could be considered responsible for monitoring for possible
tampering with the food.

~~~
vezycash
That's what tamper proof seals are for aren't they?

Cameras in fridge + CCTV could also have worked.

Fridge/unattended issue is a solved one. Japan has vending machines for food.

I think their biggest mistake was turning down the dragon funding. They would
have avoided most issues especially the one that led to their shutdown.

With food vending machines, better pricing, and new location deals, this might
work out. E.g. A vending machine in an office building.

I bet they would do well in silicon valley or any other location with high
startup density.

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Shorel
I think this would work extremely well in most developing countries.

In fact, I have read about some system in India or Japan where a lot of people
get home make food, distributed in stacked containers.

