22 Jan 2013

Gift basket firm launches in US

7:52 am on 22 January 2013

A food delivery company which was the brainchild of a Wellington paediatric nurse has moved into the US market.

Angel Deliveries started out about five years ago as a support service called Baby Angel, providing home-baked food and cleaning services to new-born parents, and rapidly expanded to Angel Deliveries.

The company now delivers gift baskets across New Zealand to individuals as well as corporate gifts and has signed up to a joint venture with The Fresh Diet, a US company which was listed in Forbes Top 20 most promising companies in 2011, and has commercial kitchens across the USA and Canada.

The business has a full time manager for the New Zealand operation, and all other staff work on contract, including a designer, kitchen staff and people providing packaging.

Founder and chief executive of Angel Deliveries, Becs Cass, said this structure made it easy to export the concept when the company was approached by an American entrepreneur in the diet food sector there, running a company called The Fresh Diet.

"We got on incredibly well, and a year later I'm setting up Angel Delivery in New York, at a 37,000 square foot kitchen."

The pair have compiled a manual, similar to that used in franchised restaurants, providing instructions on how to operate every part of the business. The model will later this year also be rolled out in the Fresh Diet Los Angeles kitchens.

Insulated gift boxes designed in New Zealand will be used to service many areas of North America over the next six months, and later the companies will roll out the operation into Fresh Diet kitchens in Florida, Chicago, Dallas and Toronto.