Feedplan 2023: Meal Plans From Restaurants

Win Feigle, the Founder and CEO of Feedplan, has pioneered an innovative restaurant subscription app. Feedplan empowers customers to save money by offering prepaid, discounted meal plans from their preferred restaurants. This platform revolutionizes the dining experience, making restaurant meals more affordable and accessible while giving users the freedom to enjoy their favorite dishes with ease. DeliveryRank finds out more.

Can you share the inspiration behind creating feedplan, and what problem in the restaurant industry were you aiming to address with this innovative subscription-based meal plan model?

So, I want to talk about the growing interest among Gen Z adults and millennials, including myself, in subscription-based meal plans offered by restaurants. This concept may seem relatively new to the restaurant industry, but it's been a standard practice in colleges for years, where students purchase meal plans.

Many people in their twenties and thirties, like me, heavily rely on restaurants. We often spend a significant amount of money on takeout, delivery, or dining out to avoid the hassles of cooking and grocery shopping.

The core idea behind the Feedplan app is essentially that it allows you to buy prepaid meals at a discounted rate from various restaurants. Instead of going into, let's say, Chipotle and spending an average of $15 per meal, the goal is to enable you to prepay for eight meals at an average cost of $10 each. This way, you save a few dollars per order.

For restaurants, this approach means they receive all the money upfront, like a bulk meal plan purchase. As a customer, you have 30 days to redeem those prepaid meals.

The Feedplan app is designed to be flexible. You can purchase as many meal plans as you want. Whether it's forty meals from five different restaurants or ten meals from just one, it's entirely up to you. This platform is all about making dining out at restaurants more affordable and convenient.

How does feedplan benefit both restaurants and customers, and what advantages does the platform offer to both sides of the dining experience?

Let me break it down. Feedplan operates as a marketplace where restaurants post their meal plans, and customers can purchase these prepaid meal plans. This approach represents a fresh perspective for the restaurant industry.

Traditionally, restaurants often have to rely on tomorrow’s income to cover today’s expenses. However, Feedplan aims to change that dynamic by enabling restaurants to generate revenue upfront, even before a meal is prepared. This shift reduces the stress caused by other services that deduct significant service fees and transaction charges, delaying payment to the restaurant.

Feedplan, on the other hand, doesn't burden restaurants with additional fees. Instead, we provide them with the money they need promptly. For customers, our goal is to help them save money and make restaurant dining and takeout a more financially feasible option.

It's not uncommon for many of us to pay exorbitant prices, like $25 for a burrito delivery to our doorstep. We believe this spending pattern is a bit unreasonable. Initially, Feedplan will focus on takeout and dine-in orders, but our long-term plan is to also incorporate delivery services.

Could you explain how restaurant owners can utilize the feedplan platform to create and customize meal plans, and how does this flexibility cater to various business models and customer preferences?

Here's how it works from the restaurant's perspective: They have full control and flexibility over what they want to offer on the Feedplan platform. This includes the ability to create custom meal plan tiers. For instance, they can choose to offer three different meal plan options, such as five meals for $60, eight meals for $88, or ten meals for $100, which translates to $12, $11, and $10 per meal, respectively. 

Moreover, restaurants also have the freedom to select which specific meals they want to include in these plans. Whether they list 4 menu items on Feedplan or more of a variety with 12 menu items for customers to choose from, that is each restaurant’s decision to make.

From the customer's perspective, they can access the Feedplan app and view what various restaurants are offering in terms of meal plans and menu items. Customers can then decide which restaurants they'd like to subscribe to or purchase meal plans from. It's essential to note that customers can only redeem meals from the specific restaurant they've subscribed to; it's not a blanket subscription that covers every restaurant on the app.

The subscription-based model is becoming increasingly popular in various industries. Can you elaborate on how feedplan assists restaurants in generating a steady stream of monthly recurring revenue, and what kind of restaurants can benefit the most from this approach?

Absolutely, Feedplan is designed with a specific focus on benefiting modern, independent restaurants that have been heavily impacted by third-party delivery services like DoorDash, UberEats, and Grubhub, which often charge them exorbitant service fees, sometimes as high as 30% per order.

Our approach, while it's similar to a subscription model, differs in that it provides upfront payments to restaurants, and it's not limited to a monthly payout. Instead, restaurants receive their earnings promptly, within two days of a customer ordering a full meal plan. This setup is especially advantageous for smaller, independent restaurants with one to three locations that typically operate on a month-to-month basis.

While our primary focus is on supporting small restaurants, we are also collaborating with larger restaurant groups in the US. Our plan is to launch in select cities, accommodating both small, independent establishments and larger restaurant chains on the Feedplan app. This way, we aim to provide a solution that benefits a wide range of restaurants in the industry. We are partnering with major fast-casual, healthier restaurant groups like Modern Market, Qdoba, MAD Greens, Snappy Salads, among others. We also plan to work with even larger brands like Cava and Sweetgreen.

As technology and dining preferences evolve, what plans does feedplan have for the future in terms of expanding its services or enhancing the dining experience for users and restaurant partners?

That's a fantastic question. I'd like to answer by saying that Feedplan represents the future of the restaurant industry. It's a groundbreaking and innovative approach to enjoying restaurant food that hasn't been fully realized until now. I have to be honest; it has been quite challenging to figure out the most efficient and effective way to make this work for both customers and restaurants.

The reason Feedplan is so innovative is that it taps into a concept that has been successful for years in the college setting—meal plans. It's a proven and profitable model. It's somewhat perplexing that the restaurant industry, which has seen minimal change over the past five decades, has not fully embraced this approach. Yes, we've had advancements like Uber Eats and DoorDash, but fundamentally, the core restaurant experience has remained relatively unchanged. 

We believe that Feedplan is the evolution the restaurant industry needs. It offers customers a much more convenient way to incorporate restaurant meals into their daily lives. Whether you're ordering one meal a day or redeeming five meals on a Sunday to serve as your meal prep for the week, Feedplan aims to make dining out easier, more flexible, and cost-effective. This is what we're striving to achieve.

Feedplan is available for download on the App Store and Google Play. If you would like to learn more about Feedplan, visit https://www.feedplan.io/