This year, we traveled to the moon and back 3.2 times delivering customer orders, that’s 1.5million km! And not a single mile would have been possible without the hard work of our partners and of course the Slerp team. This time last year, we talked of a feeling of uncertainty in hospitality as 2021 drew to a close. And 2022 has not been an easy year by any means, coming out of a pandemic and into an ongoing cost of living crisis. We know the next months aren’t going to be easy, our industry continues to be hit by so many obstacles and yet we continue to grow, learn and build relationships. Not to mention create incredible food!
So as we wrap up 2022, we wanted to pick out a couple highlights of the year, from our amazing team at Slerp to our amazing partners we work with.
Shiny and new
So let us start by giving a shout out to the partners that have joined us this year. 2022 has been a big one for learnings and growth. Compared to last, we have seen a 27% increase in the number of stores on Slerp. And a key part of this has been onboarding more partners who want Direct to Consumer to be a core part of their business.
In terms of sectors we have seen a big rise in QSRs coming on board. This seems to be an ongoing trend in the industry. Customers can order great food and they get it quickly. Bakeries also continue to be a big part of Slerp, with some great names launching their D2C journey with us this year. We have found that their products work perfectly with D2C and can be beautifully packaged, and delivered to the consumer. Doughnuts, along with pizzas and burgers were the most popular products ordered in 2022, so it’s unsurprising that these sectors make up a large part of Slerp.
It is also crucial to note the importance of small businesses. We all know how vital SMEs are to the economy and we love that at Slerp we are able to work with large enterprises whilst also supporting small businesses. We have seen huge growth and large order volumes from our single site partners and no doubt loyalty has a big part to play in this. They understand the importance of building personal relationships and in return, their customers continue to come back.
📸: Pavilion
📸: Chicken Cottage
Key dates delivered
By now you’ve heard us talk about the opportunities that key dates bring for boosting revenue. This year we celebrated love, the Queen’s birthday, the World Cup and many more! And naturally we saw a significant uplift in partner orders during these peaks. Classics like Valentine’s had an average increase of 39% whilst Mother’s Day had a 25% increase in revenue.
But it was the World Cup where we really saw partners score. Hospitality was predicted to do well during the tournament, with both at home orders and on site. Whilst many like to watch football in the pub, data showed that 1 in 3 people used the World Cup as an excuse to order a takeaway. We noticed this particularly during the England games with an increase in orders of 58% during the England vs Senegal game in early December. After the last couple of years we’ve had, it was great to see our partners getting a well deserved boost.
Radio Lamington’s beautiful Valentines box
Mother’s Day in bed, courtesy of The Berkley
Basilico was the takeaway of the World Cup
Shoutout to our Slerpies
Finally, we couldn’t write a blog on 2022 highlights without mentioning the amazing team we have at Slerp. As we mentioned earlier, it’s been a great year of learning and growth for us and with that we’ve had some lovely new faces join the team in all different areas of the business, both in our hub in London and remotely.
Speaking of new, we’ve also released many new features and products. Some key launches include partner apps, loyalty and delivery rate cards (and this doesn’t even really scratch the surface). Our product team is constantly working on improving our tech and making your customers’ ordering experience even better than it already is.
We’ve also been branching out in the world of marketing! We kicked off the year with several trade shows, a first for us and a chance to meet more hospo people in person after a long period of lockdowns and virtual meetings. Marketing is such an important tool for our partners so this year we continued to help partners push this more. We designed and printed collateral, created SMS and email campaigns and ran paid ads on google and meta.
Finally we’ve also been driving culture within the business. Creating more opportunities for team building and continuing to build an environment where we look out for and support each other, regardless of where we work in the world.
Commercial team representing at the NEC in Birmingham
Some of the team at our annual offsite
In short, we reckon 2022 has been a pretty good year. We wish you all a Merry Christmas, a happy new year and a well earned break! See you in 2023.