An interview with Digby Vollrath and Hugo Campbell, founders of Feast It, one of Forward Fooding’s top 500 Food Tech startups.

Digby Vollrath and Hugo Campbell, founders of Feast It

It’s time to put a face to the name…

We asked our FoodTech 500 top-runners to give us a bit of insight into how they started out as a company and their thoughts on the role of technology in Food innovation. Meet Digby and Hugo, the power-duo behind Feast It, UK’s leading event booking platform that connects event organisers with a carefully curated list of over 1,000 food, drink and photography suppliers across the UK. Let’s see what Digby and Hugo had to say.

So tell us a little bit more about you! Where did the idea for your FoodTech company come from?

Digby and Hugo: We had both spent years working in the festival and events industries and grew incredibly frustrated at the amount of time we were spending trying to hunt down the best caterers; finding out if they were available and then trying to book them. We decided to create a modern and simple platform that would let people book the ideal food and drink for their next event. Delicious food, creative drinks and amazing service, without the logistics and legwork.

How is tech central to your business?

Digby and Hugo: With over 1,000 painstakingly handpicked suppliers on our platform, we’re the first completely curated digital marketplace in the UK event space. Our customers can browse and book a supplier in just four clicks on our site and our suppliers have instant access to events all over the UK from their device whilst they’re at home or on the go.

Thanks to the hard work of our team, the Feast It platform is constantly evolving. This year has seen the release of dozens of brand new features to make the process of booking event catering seamless for both customers and suppliers, including the creation of both a supplier and a customer dashboard. Platform changes are heavily influenced by feedback from our customers and suppliers – identifying pain points and then developing smart solutions is at the centre of what we do. The 2019 development and release of a calendar feature is a great example of this, allowing customers transparency of which suppliers are available on their chosen date and efficiency for suppliers, who are now only contacted for events on dates they’re definitely available for.

Why do you think it’s important to see the food industry embrace tech?

Digby and Hugo: Industries that don’t embrace technology are going to be left behind. If a company – irrespective of the industry – wants to grow in this era, it’s vital that they stay up to date with rapidly evolving digital technology.

Typically, the food/events industry has been behind the curve, it’s where the travel industry was pre-booking.com – it’s hard to discover and compare the best suppliers – then difficult to book and manage multiple suppliers per event. On the financial innovation side, there are no tools to help with the organiser’s cash flow for an event. Until Feast It, there was nowhere that offered both household names alongside independent businesses.

The internet is the first place people turn when organising catering for their event. The Feast It platform offers suppliers across the UK a simple way to digitise their business, with relatively little effort from them. The website not only serves a stream of thousands of available events to suppliers; it also makes them discoverable and, more importantly, bookable by customers.

Want to know more? Check out Feast It’s full profile here.

Congratulations again to Feast It for ranking 7th in the “Consumer Apps & Services” category of the Foodtech 500 list.

To find out who else made it into the FoodTech 500; the top Food Tech companies in the world, click here.

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