Hospitality company dishes up bespoke UK-wide service
Hospitality and events company, Dine, has this week launched a bespoke online arm to its business which is set to take the firm nationwide.
Leeds-based Dine was founded by Dan Gill in 1998 and the £2.5m-turnover business operates several venues, including Howsham Hall in North Yorkshire and The Mansion in Leeds, specialising in high quality catering for corporate events and weddings.
Dine Delivered is the newest addition to the business; an online hospitality platform which has a patent pending because of the way it dynamically suggests menus and food options for the online customer – delivering restaurant quality food conveniently to people’s doorsteps. It even allows people to hire glassware, linen and hospitality staff.
Menus for the service have all been created by the chefs at Dine and the firm has created bespoke packaging for their dishes, so that they arrive ready for every event. Dine will prepare all dishes and deliver them nationwide through a partnership with DPD. As a nod to its Yorkshire roots, deliveries in Leeds will be free.
Dine has invested around £100,000 in the web development and associated set-up costs. It has taken around 18 months to perfect the intelligent and dynamic online service, ensuring all dietary requirements and every detail that a customer would need about menus are available throughout the process; including downloadable PDF menus.
As people move through the website, they can add and amend elements to their order and can also make changes once the order has been placed. Wine pairings can also be chosen and every size of event can be catered for.
Dan Gill
For founder Gill, it is an exciting time for the future of the business. He has projected £500,000 of sales in the first year and says his ambitions are to grow to a £6m-turnover firm in the next six years.
Gill also has his sights set on scaling-up Dine Delivered through a future partnership with a national online retailer such as Ocado.
He said: “It’s an incredibly complex, dynamic platform; we have gone into a great deal of depth with every single dish. We know that the website will process 16,500 pieces of data per transaction.
“Expectations have changed and people should be able to buy services like this online.”
Gill expects the platform to appeal to both corporate and consumer markets: “There is nothing like this on the market; I believe we have created something that is significantly different and innovative. I feel extremely proud.” he added.
Dine has grown its venue list as part of its ongoing expansion and last year added Liverpool’s Sefton Park Palm House. Sefton Park Palm House, set in the 235-acre Grade one historic Sefton Park, is an octagonal, three-tiered, Grade II listed Victorian glasshouse.
Recently, Dine also launched its hospitality and catering services in the newly opened Kirkstall Forge complex, which is occupied by CEG and Zenith. Gill said this area of the business was going well and it had been a great start to 2018, despite the sector being very competitive and squeezed.
For more information, visit www.dinedelivered.co.uk
