For the Love of Food

For this week’s Garager Stories, we caught up with the Co-General Managers of newbie-GaragerDeliveroo: Justin and Brian. They shared with us their globetrotting ways, favourite eats in Hong Kong, and living by the motto that there is no love sincerer than the love of food. Fresh-off-the-boat Justin is no stranger to the expat life. He was born in New York but grew up in London, where he started his career in commercial real estate. Fast-forward to 2013: Justin joins Deliveroo as the company’s first employee.Since that fateful day, Justin’s seen the company through3 rounds of fundingand rapid expansion into 12 countries,edging out competitionwith a streamlined platform, speedy delivery, and an extensive selection of premium restaurants. With an average delivery time of just 32 minutes, your food is likely to arrive faster than the time it takes you to decide on what to eat. Aside from being a sports fiend (recently dabbling in Muay Thai), Justin’s passionate about F&B and the technology sector, which in the case of Deliveroo, go together like wine & cheese. Armed with a business model that’s completely disrupted food delivery in the UK, begins Justin’s personal journey of spearheading Deliveroo HK with Brian. This brings us to our next co-GM Brian from Hong Kong, conveniently the city that he (and the rest of us) considers to be the world’s food capital. After graduating from the UPenn, Brian spent 4 years traversing the globe for his consulting job, from quaint days spent on the Welsh coast to 6 months in Papua New Guinea – a place he fondly remembers for sailing and an emergency landing because the pilot “forgot to fuel up”.Nowadays, he’s a little more grounded but just as adventurous when it comes to food. All too familiar with food delivery from his consultant days, Brian saw the value of having a reliable and convenient service provider in the city that works with premium restaurants because take out shouldn’t mean grossed out. Aside from both being in the DC Comics camp, there’s another notable topic that they agree on and take seriously. Since they embarked on this journey, both Justin and Brian have had to address the understandably sensitive topic ofcompetition; let’s call it the big orange elephant in the room. In addition to emphasising a respect for all competition, especially with regards to their efforts in educating the market, Justin also added: “We are showing that food delivery is a viable service for restaurants. We’re excited to share what we have to offer, and we hope that everyone will try us out.” After all, there’s enough love to go around. ---***Deliveroo has officially launched in Hong Kong, and they're kindly providing Garagers with an exclusive promo code for their first order. Looks like there is such a thing as a free lunch.