HAMILTON

INNOVATION
Foodies Set To Connect
Chinese Customers With
Local Hospitality Businesses
A new online platform called Foodies has just launched out of New Zealand. The
new product allows visitors to view food and beverage menus, prices and deals
in both Chinese’s and English languages.
The new venture which has been live for just two weeks has already secured 6
major customers and is a spinoff of parent company Infosite.co.nz, a multilingual
‘deals’ site. Info Site, which has over 70,000 hits per day, will direct some of its
traffic to the new Foodies website.
Foodies gives local hospitality businesses the opportunity to tap into the over
170,000 Chinese-speaking residents in New Zealand and the ever growing
number of Chinese’s tourist visitors.
Mavis & Co, a major café and catering chain in the Waikato were one of the first
companies to take advantage of the new Foodies platform.
“Mavis joined Foodies as it’s a great opportunity to interact with a growing
multicultural customer base and to communicate in a more direct and relevant
way.” Fin Irwin Owner Manager of Mavis & Co.
For local food businesses the site offers a subscription model at only $89per
month, which includes the translation and display of your menu as well as
automated reports which detail the success of your menu. Foodies also offer
fully translated advertising spots starting at $450 for single ad and $1,000 for
up to 6 ads.
Being Chinese themselves, Foodies founders Fang Fang and Luke Lee know that
many Chinese people in New Zealand can experience difficulties with activities
such as ordering a meal or navigating deal sites with traditional retailers. They
noticed a problem and endeavored to solve it. The result is a unique online
product, which is the only one of its kind in New Zealand.
“We recognize that New Zealand is now multicultural, and this platform helps
to bridge the gap between those multicultural groups and traditional retailers.
Foodies have already helped businesses such as Mizzoni Pizza increase sales by
more than $900 in just three weeks.” Luke Lee, Foodies Co-Founder.
Future developments of this platform will aim to see a streamline customer
experience where visitors can not only view the menus in Chinese but also order
meals directly from the website.
Foodies are also looking to expand their team and are on the hunt for savvy
sales representatives in Auckland, Wellington, Christchurch and Queenstown. If
you are interested in helping grow this exciting new venture then touch base
with the team at foodies.infosite.co.nz.