SpiceBox

Idea

Introduction

SpiceBox is an award-winning local curry house, which happens to be 100% vegan...

We blend curry house favourites with traditional Indian recipes to offer a fresh, vibrant spin on the great British curry house.

After 2 years of refining our product through street food, in January 2019 we opened the doors to our first neighbourhood curry house in Walthamstow, east London. We've been blown away by the love and demand for our award-winning Indian food and are now ready to open SpiceBox #2!

It's our aim to become the UK's number one Indian food brand, with curry houses on high streets up and down the UK and retail products in supermarkets nation-wide.

Intended impact

Grace grew up cooking and eating Indian food and, once she'd moved out of home, became frustrated that she couldn't find a local curry house that offered food as fresh and tasty as her Auntie Dolly cooked and she ate whilst in India.

Then in 2015, whilst living in Silicon Valley, Grace became vegan and realised Indian food was a great way to eat a plant-based diet without compromising on flavour.

She put her two passions together and so SpiceBox was born!

The UK curry house industry generates £4.2bn annually, yet no single brand dominates. We see a huge opportunity in the local Indian restaurant/takeaway space and our aim is to become the UK's leading curry house brand.

The rise of veganism in the UK has been well documented - between 2016-2018 orders of vegan takeaways grew by 388%. 1 in 5 people are actively eating less meat and, by 2025, it is predicted this will rise to 50% of all adults.

At SpiceBox, we're catering for this shift in eating habits. Our focus is providing amazing food and service to the local community in a way that also benefits society and the environment.

Our plan is to focus on towns outside of major UK cities, breathing some spicy life back into the UK high street!

Substantial accomplishments to date

NB: Breakeven revenue within 4 weeks of trading is based on site-level EBITDA*

2016:

- Young British Foodie street food finalist

- Evening Standard 20 best veggie dishes in London

- Voted top 10 street food business in London by Time Out.

2017:

- Raised seed round of investment to open 1st site

2018:

- Hand-picked by Deliveroo to join their first incubator program

- Open pop-up test kitchen in Walthamstow become a instant local favourite

2019:

- Open first curry house and breakeven within 4 weeks, turn a profit within 6 weeks (based on site-level EBITDA)*

- Win best takeaway in East London at the London Curry Awards

- Shortlisted as People's Favourite at the Sustainable Restaurant Awards

*Based on unaudited management accounts

Monetisation strategy

We currently have 2 revenue streams; dine-in and takeaway. Our takeaway sales have experienced steady growth thanks to our reusable Tiffin Club and online ordering platform. Dine-in currently accounts for 80% of sales, with takeaway making up the rest.

Future revenue opportunities include selling SpiceBox retail products through independent and major retailers, introducing delivery and franchising our curry houses.

Use of proceeds

We've tested the concept and proved demand, our focus now is to build a strong scalable foundation for the SpiceBox brand.

- 85% of the funds will be used to acquire and fit out our second curry house

- 10% will be put towards retail R+D

- 5% will be used as working capital/cashflow requirements