Idea

Introduction

Two MasterChef finalists became friends with a shared vision for a special kind of takeaway.

With the mission set, the boys set about creating a business and menu that flips the traditional Chinese takeaway on its head. To test their ideas they set up a pop up in the five star Celtic Manor, and were blown away by the feedback, Hokkei was born. Dedication to authentic and delicious flavours, using ethically sourced, high quality ingredients and a service second to none are just three things that make Hokkei awesome.

The business is owned by Dale and Larkin. Larkin grew up in his parents Chinese takeaway, he knows the Chinese food takeaway industry inside out and is a qualified lawyer. Dale is a successful entrepreneur who owns and runs one of the UK's fastest growing recruitment businesses.

Together, they have created a healthy, fresh and revolutionary Asian takeaway which opened its doors in November 2014.

Intended impact

Impacting the market, it is Hokkei's mission to create a new, different, funky, cool, modern Asian fast food takeaway restaurant and to establish this restaurant within a loyal customer demographic through a national chain of Asian food delivery outlets.

By producing cutting edge food combined with reinvented classics, Hokkei intends to become the UK’s number 1 brand and supplier of Asian takeaway food.
A new concept, Hokkei wants to redefine the eating experience traditionally available from a takeaway outlet. From concept to creation, the menu is distinguished and aims to remove the stigma attached to takeaways being unhealthy and predominately boring.

Hokkei is a modernised and reinvented Asian takeaway with the potential of growing into more than one site through business improvement and product innovation. We found that the market is dominated by independent, family owned Chinese takeaways and we believe this is largely down to the ‘skill’ factor required, usually retained by the sites proprietor.

Hokkei aims to remove the need for highly skilled cooks or chefs by removing the technical element and requirement to use potentially dangerous woks at a high heat to produce food. This innovation comes from centralising processes, cooking on mass and using state of the art techniques to enable food to be prepared in a new way, without any compromise on quality or taste. Consistency shall be maintained by centralising the process which would maximise quality control. The food would be produced centrally and each dish would effectively constructed or assembled to order in a fresh clean environment with little skilled cooking required within each Hokkei branch.

In achieving this redeveloped way of preparing, cooking and delivering delicious Asian takeaway food, we believe the business has the potential to become scalable to a number of sites thus creating a brand and in turn a valuable business.

Substantial accomplishments to date

From an original idea early in 2013 Hokkei was tested as a concept in the 5* Celtic Manor resort fully booked for its sellout 4 day pop up.Another successful pop-up followed, and, a BBC TV series was commissioned to follow the story of taking the business from an idea to a trading business, this 4 episode documentary is due to air this April 2015 in a prime time slot on BBC One.

During the following 12 months Hokkei was created and opened its doors to rave reviews during the last week of November, 2014.

From a standing start, the business has turned over +150k in 3 months trading with a limited menu and a soft-launch averaging a product GM of 60%*. Now fully operational, the business is gearing up to propel forward taking into account all of the lessons of the first 3 months trade.

*Source: unaudited management accounts

Monetisation strategy

Short to Medium-Term
It is our objective to ensure the stability, fluidity and scalability of the Hokkei model by perfecting the opening outlet to run a seamless food preparation and delivery operation, developing the model to replicate success in alternate locations within the Cardiff postcode area.
• Create a fluid process of preparation utilising the head office as a development kitchen and a preparation kitchen for sites 1-5.
• Identify the potential sites within Cardiff for Hokkei sites 2-5.
• Generate a robust trading platform to ensure consistent revenues by recruiting a Marketing professional in-house to manage email marketing campaigns alongside offline marketing and promotions.
• Invest in state of the art multi-site software for delivery driver and stock communication.
• Using available data, fine tune the Hokkei menu to roll-out to new Hokkei branches based on what ‘sells’ and listening to customer demand.

Long-Term
It is the long-term objective of the directors of Hokkei to create a nationally established and highly successful business known as the leading takeaway restaurant delivering Asian food.
• To centralise the Hokkei kitchen operations into a separate manufacturing unit capable of servicing in excess of 5 Hokkei units.
• To develop a Hokkei franchising service to interested investors in alternate locations throughout the UK.
• To expand the Hokkei business Geographically creating a profitable, scalable and fast-growing business to attract external sale or investment.

Use of proceeds

Hokkei is trading strongly (turnover of 150k in 3 months) and thus seems to provide potential to offer a scalable, profitable business model.

The traction of the business has already seen the business twitter account soar to 3,000 followers.
In order to capitalise on the imminent impact of a TV series airing, the business needs a cash injection to open a secondary site and benefit from economies of scale.

Part of the investment would be utilised to pay off outstanding costs relating to the development of site one, therefore freeing up the capital and cash reserves to invest in site 2.

Pursuant to this, a Marketing Executive and Finance Administrator have been identified as salaried roles along with a small office lease to house central administrative duties.

In summary the capital would help to stabilise and shape the business for impending growth.