Saudi-based serial entrepreneur Eugen Brikcius announced the launch of its new food tech startup, lechef, which has reimagined workplace dining by providing easy access to workplace catering featuring fresh, healthy, grab-and-go meals through tech-driven smart fridges, also known as ‘smart canteens’.
The startup aims to boost business productivity and promote workplace engagement and wellbeing by encouraging employees to stay on workplace premises while enabling the consumption of nutritious meals. lechef also recently raised an undisclosed amount after completing its seed funding round.
Eugen Brikcius has over a decade of experience and a proven history as an influential startup CEO. He was previously the co-CEO of Rocket Internet’s Middle Eastern ride-hailing venture Jeeny, CEO of UAE-based online shopping portal Wadi.com and Managing Director of Foodics. lechef’s concept originated when Eugen moved to the Middle East and observed challenges in the workplace dining environment over the past decade. He noticed that valuable time was usually wasted (averaging around 30 minutes a day) by figuring out lunch plans at the office premises, thereby leading to decreased productivity with off-site lunches often overrunning break time limits.
Moreover, although workplace food options expanded throughout the years, they were generally limited, expensive, unhealthy and inconvenient to obtain, leading to frustration for those who sought healthier options. Additionally, subscription meal providers were not very flexible and offered repetitive choices. According to an internal study around 65% of employees in Riyadh and Jeddah struggle to find appealing and healthy food options. Being entrepreneurial by nature, Eugen made it his mission to combat these obstacles and futurize workplace dining with a tech-driven solution, thus creating lechef.
At its core, the startup provides office catering through smart canteens stocked with fresh and healthy meals that seamlessly integrate into office spaces, offering a hassle-free grab-and-go meal selection experience for employees. Once the smart canteen is set up and stocked, users only register once on the lechef mobile app and can then scan the QR code on the canteen, pick their preferred meals and enjoy without waiting in any checkout line. The canteen is equipped with an RFID (Radio Frequency Identification) system that instantly detects selected meal choices and completes the payment automatically, deducting it from the user’s setup payment method. Thereby, saving considerable time by removing waiting lines, and lowering company costs by minimizing staff and maintenance of the setup.
The canteens are offered on a yearly subscription basis and provide greater flexibility than regular pre-prepared store-bought food due to the lechef’s meal customization ability. Consequently, this makes the canteen a valuable purchase for companies when considering the return on investment that could be gained from sizeable savings and productivity improvements due to its convenience.
All the food is thoughtfully crafted by the startup’s in-house chefs encompassing over 200 recipes with weekly menus catering to every palate while including dietary preferences and displaying calorie counts. From nutritious meals, wholesome snacks, and refreshing beverages, meals can be customized on the lechef mobile app and pre-ordered as per user needs. They are also delivered daily to the smart canteens, thereby offering daily variety in choice, eliminating the need for labour-intensive restocking by employees and the need to go off-site to find food. Furthermore, meal choices in the canteen are adjusted regularly based on data captured from previous consumption behaviour.
lechef’s tech solutions even offer easy scaling to cater to large workplaces, making it suitable for various industries, including healthcare, education, banking, consulting, government institutions and more. Each smart canteen serves 50 employees. The overall canteen integration can also be customized and scaled to a larger multi-purpose space including elements such as a coffee shop, essential kitchen amenities, and comfortable seating to craft a welcoming haven for relaxing breaks that enhance productivity and workspace ambience.
Commenting on the launch of the startup, Eugen Brikcius said “At lechef, we believe that everyone deserves a healthy and wholesome meal during their busy workday. We aim to transform the typical workplace dining experience into a nutritious one that keeps employee morale up while boosting productivity. From food aggregators who serve limited healthy options to canteens that are resource-heavy to set up, we’ve decoded the challenges of workplace dining and crafted lechef to provide an optimal dining experience by blending technology with healthy eating habits. Our current focus is on launching operations, maintaining high-quality food and beverage choices, honing our technology expertise and gathering data for continuous improvement.”
lechef’s recent seed funding will support the startup’s initial growth including, product development, hiring key talent, and launching initial marketing campaigns. The startup is currently piloting its solution with Keeta – the international subsidiary and localized Saudi arm of Meituan – one of the largest food delivery platforms in the world originally based in China.
