With food delivery being dominated by big tech, and the incredible fees they charge to restaurants, a local Aussie entrepreneur saw an opportunity.

Dave Wilton grew up in Melbourne with a dream to do big things. He wanted to travel and spent the vast majority of his career in the travel industry, working as a travel agent for Flight Centre.

While there, he bonded with his (then) future wife over their passion for travel. They fell in love and went on to live and work in both Japan, Singapore and Canada.

While Rachael-Anne moved into teaching, Dave moved into corporate travel and stayed there for 20 odd years, leading teams and running a business within a business.

A pandemic hits, but inspires the future

Dave remembers when COVID-19 hit and the drastic change it brought; 

“Travel was obviously one of the first things hit with COVID. The writing was on the wall that hey, this is actually going to be pretty serious. Everyone stopped travelling and 85% of our company (Flight Centre) was stood down. 

Something rather brutal for a company with 5,000 staff.

Everyone had to either quickly reinvent themselves or sit and wait. So here I am, at the ripe old age of 50 and with 3 kids and a mortgage, trying to think of what to do next after being made redundant in 2020. Many of my friends and colleagues decided to wait for travel to come back but I wasn’t sure when and if it was.” 

Dave decided to take fate into his own hands.

An ‘awakening’ into the hard-hit hospitality industry

Like many industries, hospitality was grossly affected by the global pandemic.

Dave and his family had never ‘ordered in’ much apart from the occasional Friday night pizza. In the early days of the pandemic, he became aware of the 35% fee that companies like Uber Eats, Menulog and Doordash were charging restaurants.

He said, “People were paying their $5 or similar for delivery, not knowing what was happening to their local beloved restaurants behind the scenes. I saw many restaurants trying to stay afloat but many had no choice but to close.

The industry was on its knees and the big delivery companies were there ready to chop heads off. Restaurants were suddenly forced into a position where they were doing delivery that wasn’t profitable, in order to keep staff in jobs. 

Despite not making any money, restaurant owners saw the delivery giants as a necessary evil to keep customers.”

A new venture created to support local

In May 2020, Dave, with his co-founder Ash Arnott, decided they could do better for local restaurants than the big players and set up Bite Local, an online food delivery app that supports local restaurants by charging significantly lower fees than competitors.

The first Bite Local region was set up in Mornington and saw quick support from restaurants and locals.

Dave is proud of what they have achieved so far, saying “We are backed by the community, who now know the reality of what restaurants are charged and who want to support their favourites.  

We set out to run a profitable business that is fair to the restaurants and drivers, while also giving a better experience to customers. That’s why we exist today, because we’re succeeding.”

Gathering support to overcome new business challenges

As with any new business, Dave and Ash had to work with limited resources and decide how best to use them.

A key challenge was how to get customers to embrace something new. Bite Local received support from the local Chamber of Commerce councils where they could, with help in promotion to customers. Dave said there was still a long way to go to convince consumers to change their regular behaviours away from the bigger corporate food delivery giants. 

“We needed to educate the community, so we went about touring restaurants. The feedback we received was overwhelmingly positive. Next was targeting customers who generally don’t have an appetite for downloading another app. 

Uber Eats is a name raised regularly in a household with takeaway and let’s be honest, we can’t afford Snoop Dogg on our TV ads like MenuLog!

What we didn’t realise is how much our restaurants would do that job for us. Because we were delivering their food at half the cost, they started marketing to customers on our behalf.”

Embedded into communities for the benefit of everyone

Not only does BiteLocal support restaurants, but they also sponsor local sporting groups. 

As Dave says, “It’s about doing more for society, for communities. Being able to take some success and give back to the community. We don’t want to just help our communities, we want to be a part of them.”

Dave himself is a member of his local Rotary, a member of the Chamber of Commerce in Mornington and heavily involved in community and local small businesses.

A good bloke, doing great things all round.

Find out more about becoming a part of Bite Local HERE