Dear Angel Insights Reader,
Anthony Bourdain, celebrity chef and travel writer, was once quoted about his passion for food saying, “Your body is not a temple, it’s an amusement park. Enjoy the ride.” You have to eat. I have to eat. We all have to eat.
Why not choose to eat food that we like, love, or are inspiring to us?
A company called Home Bistro would like to inspire us!
Introducing Home Bistro (HBIS), an online platform, www.homebistro.com, that provides for the creation, production, and distribution of direct-to-consumer, heat-to-eat, celebrity chef inspired gourmet meals, providing a variety of high-quality meal selections with simple prep and easy cleanup.
Why would we consider Home Bistro as a potential investment? Lots of reasons! In my opinion, it is a concept that is a perfect reflection of our times (i.e. right business for the right time!), it is setting sales growth records virtually every quarter this year, it has a management team that has taken companies to a liquidity event previously and is battle-tested, they are ALREADY PUBLIC and have announced they are exploring uplisting to the NASDAQ! Read on and see why I am so excited.
Food, obviously, is non-discretionary. We all have to eat! Unfortunately, it’s not as simple as waving a magic wand or, in this case, a magic spatula. We have to plan our meals, prep our food, cook it, and clean up dirty pots, pans, and dishes after we’re done eating when all we want to do is relax. I hate doing dishes on a full stomach.
If I want to avoid the mess and the dishes, then I’m left ordering out from the same places over and over again, quickly tiring of the same food.
COVID also taught us all about the global food delivery market, all $200 billion worth. But I’m not talking about your local pizza delivery guy, Food Delivery 1.0, or the person bringing me DoorDash or UberEats, Food Delivery 2.0. I’m talking about the evolution of food delivery.
Food Delivery 3.0. The next generation of food tech courtesy of prepared food delivery.
Premium branded direct-to-consumer gourmet meals that can be shipped anywhere in the country, overnight.
I want a meal I can prepare quickly at home without the feeling of home, without the mess, without the cleanup, and without sacrificing taste or quality.
Don’t mistake this for me wanting a meal-kit service. Those services ship pre-portioned ingredients along with a recipe. That doesn’t solve any of the challenges above except shaving a few minutes off of my prep time.
What I want is next-level evolution. A company that can solve the problems plaguing the industry:
-
Inconsistent Quality – Most meal delivery companies are locked in a race to the bottom in terms of price. This means they are forced to make tradeoffs with the food quality to compete.
-
Meal Fatigue – Eventually, people get bored eating the same meals repeatedly, even if it’s their favorite dish from their favorite restaurant. I know I do.
-
Poor Experience – Even if you get a great meal delivered from a high-quality restaurant – or you cook the meals yourself – eating at home is still eating at home.
Remember Home Bistro? Well, they remember you! They know that a certain percentage of consumers want to eat extremely well without having to become a chef themselves. Consumers are pining for something special and unique. Food Delivery 3.0 is real and you will see how Home Bistro is leading that charge.
AND….You may be shocked to learn exactly how big this market will be moving forward. Statista estimates the platform-to-consumer segment of the US food delivery market will reach $9.7 billion by 2024. Brandessence Market Research and Consulting estimates the global read-made meal delivery market will be more than $11 billion in 2027.
A large and growing Total Addressable Market (TAM) is a key component for Home Bistro.
Anyone can prepare a meal and ship it out. That’s true, so how do I separate quality from an average meal?
Home Bistro has done it by teaming up with well-known celebrity chefs, some of the best in their respective fields.
COVID created a problem for even the best chefs in the world. Maintaining existing brick-and-mortar restaurants became a challenge and opening new ones an impossibility. A chef can only sell so many cookbooks and recipes, but serving folks your fantastic cuisine, fresh and in their homes, became a reality thanks to Home Bistro.
Leaving your meal in the hand of expertsThe first celebrity chef Home Bistro signed was Cat Cora. Don’t mistake “celebrity” with popular but untalented. Cat Cora is plenty talented. She won the Iron Chef on the Food Network’s hit show, Iron Chef America, the first female chef to win such a prestigious honor.
Since then, they’ve added Roblé Ali, Chef Claudia Sandoval, Daina Falk, and, most recently, Ayesha Curry.
All of these chefs are renowned, so I’m not going to place one above another. They all possess unique talent, creativity, and proven success.
I am excited about the newest addition, Ayesha Curry. Her husband, Stephen, is a future NBA Hall-of-Famer and NBA Champion, but Ayesha’s fame doesn’t just come from her husband. She is a 2x New York Times best-selling cookbook author, a television host, and a producer along with co-founder of the Eat. Learn. Play. Foundation. Her 7.3 million followers on social media could bring new subscribers in waves to Home Bistro’s ready-to-eat meal plans.
Home Bistro didn’t just sign her but also her company, Ms. Curry’s Homemade Meals, LLC, a weekly-delivered service of her family-inspired recipes, sold both in major grocery stores as well as direct-to-consumer.
Roble Ali is one of the most recognizable chefs and one of the very few young African-Americans in the culinary world with national notoriety. He’s also been featured on Bravo’s docudrama, Chef Roble and Co.
Chef Claudia Sandoval, was the winner of the sixth season of MasterChef U.S. and has been a judge on two seasons of MasterChef Latino on Telemundo. She was most recently seen earlier this year as a judge on Food Network’s Easter Basket Challenge and is currently in production on a new series she will be hosting and producing for Food Network.
Diana Falk is the creator of Hungry Fan®, Fangating®, and other brands that marry sports and food for the ultimate fan experience.
AND THE LIST KEEPS GROWING. Home Bistro’s CEO, Zalmi Duchman, continues to land talented chef after talented chef, so I have no reason to believe he’s done. This experienced CEO checks another big investment box for me: a prior successful venture. Zalmi grew The Fresh Diet, an online meal delivery service from startup to over $30 million in annualized revenue before selling the company. Now, he’s bringing that experience and knowledge to Home Bistro. One of the first major changes he’s implemented is moving from frozen to fresh food.
Using a state-of-the-art plastics material, specially engineered to create an attractive and reliably sealed package, consumers can receive a celebrity chef-inspired fresh meal good for 10-14 days in the refrigerator or up to 6 months when frozen. It is called “vacuum skin-packaging”; Not only is it cheaper than many flash-frozen processes, but it’s more environmentally friendly and easier to ship.
Vacuum skin-packaging seals the product like a second skin while eliminating air, providing package durability and optimal product presentation, and shelf-life extension.
In July 2021, Home Bistro announced it has begun shipping meals utilizing this vacuum skin-packaging technology. It could represent a significant opportunity to not only win new customers but increase repeat purchases from existing customers.
But what is the best part about eating out, rather than not having to cook or clean up?
Dessert
It is what elevates great food to a great eating experience.
Home Bistro has that, too. The company recently announced a partnership with Red Velvet NYC, a subscription-based service specializing in DIY gourmet baking kits.
DIY may sound like work, and it is, but the Home Bistro offering will be fully prepared desserts from recipes created and developed by Red Velvet.
The Numbers
All of this added up to record first-quarter 2021 results. The company saw online meal orders skyrocket over 200% year-over-year as Home Bistro reported revenue of $350,474 for the quarter. That revenue number was twice last year’s number.
Second-quarter results were good. Revenues were up 30% over the previous year. The third-quarter revenues, though, set records. The company reported record revenue of $703,364 for its third quarter ended September 30, 2021, a 135% increase vs the same period in 2020. Online meal orders increased by 501% during the third quarter of 2021 vs. the same period in 2020.
You are welcome to read this for yourself on Yahoo! Finance:
Growth…and wine!
These results come prior to the company fully integrating Chef Curry, Chef Ali, Chef Claudia, rolling out Daina’s line of offerings, or the Red Velvet dessert line. They also don’t take into account the switch from flash-frozen to vacuum-sealed fresh shipped overnight. Subsequent to the third quarter, the company announced its partnership with Perfecting Athletes, the health and nutrition company serving over 300 elite professional athletes, supermodels, and other accomplished sports and entertainment professionals worldwide. Together, they will introduce their highly sought-after dietary and meal regimens to Home Bistro’s customers.
Further, Home Bistro also announced its partnership with the direct-to-consumer wine platform, In Good Taste Wine. Customers will soon be able to pair their celebrity chef-inspired meals with wines from a carefully chosen selection of varietals from around the world.
Another potentially big push for revenue is the company’s recent acquisition of Model Meals, a ready-to-eat, healthy meal service. Home Bistro paid approximately $2.1 million for a company that produced $2.2 million in revenue in 2020 delivering to only three states: California, Nevada, and Arizona.
The current CEO and CFO of Model Meals will be retained and run the Model Meals subsidiary. Combining Model Meals distribution facility with Home Bistro’s will provide the company with bi-coastal operations and the ability to ship overnight to most customers in the 48 contiguous United States. Additionally, Model Meals will be able to expand outside its current three-state distribution platform, so I’m optimistic revenue can potentially grow quickly.
As the company continues to partner with more and more chefs plus roll out food technology that will permit quality prepared food to be delivered fresh and overnight, the market and consumers could respond.
How Home Bistro gets to the next level!
The company is currently accepting investors in its Reg A+ unit offering. Buyers of the Reg A+ offering receive units that represent one share of stock plus a five-year warrant to buy additional shares at $1.50.
All of the details for the Reg A+ raise are contained in the offering documents which can be accessed below.
I do want to note that before Home Bistro began their process of raising capital, they did retain a consulting firm that one of our former employees was a partner in, for a fee of $50,000 to help structure the deal, advise on strategic moves, and discuss their long-term business model. While I understand that may cause hesitation for some, and I respect that, I also feel it provided us with a unique look behind closed doors. Over the past four months, we’ve had the opportunity to spend hours talking with the CEO and dozens of hours talking to the original venture capital behind the company, listening and learning the lessons they’ve endured growing this company along with their vision for the future. Do not take our word for it…do your own due diligence. Since they are public, there is a plethora of information available.
If you find this story interesting, you can access the opportunity and learn more through Equifund, the platform Home Bistro selected to host their Reg A+ offering.
Here’s the link: CLICK ON IMAGE BELOW TO GO TO OFFERING DOCUMENTS
