Home-delivered food more than just a pet project
The grilled chicken kebab with rice and tomatoes Doggy Bag from Turkish Pide and Kebabs
Online company Delivery Hero has launched a food home delivery service for pets. Not cans of Snappy Tom and Whiskas, mind, but "people food" from the same joints people order their home-delivered curries and kebabs.
"Doggy Bag" is a straightforward concept. You head over to the Delivery Hero website, pick and click your own dinner from a participating Doggy Bag restaurant and order a pet-sized something on the side.
"The idea came about after an April Fool's joke I suggested to do takeaway food for pets" says Delivery Hero marketing executive Guillaume Papillion. "Then we realised it wasn't a joke and it could actually work."
Only 10 restaurants are participating at the moment, all within Sydney. Items listed on the Doggy Bag menu include: penne in a meat sauce with chicken, zucchini, carrots, and pumpkin ($6/$8) from Micky's Cafe, Paddington; goat masala with rice and vegetables ($5/$8) from Maya Da Dhaba, Surry Hills; grilled chicken kebab with rice and tomatoes ($9) from Turkish Pide and Kebabs, Erskineville and; boiled chicken fillet with turmeric and garden vegetables ($5/$8) from Taste of India, Double Bay.
All Doggy Bag meals have been specially created for pets. Mr Papillion says it was left in the hands of the participating restaurants to make sure the food was fit for feline and canine consumption.
A happy Doggy Bag customer
"They're very simple dishes," he said. "The restaurants were all briefed with what ingredients they should and should not use. Onions, for instance, are toxic to dogs. And everything is very low in seasoning.
"Everyone we approached was very excited to develop meals for pets.
"The owner of Taste of India in Double Bay was like 'I really want to do chicken with turmeric but I don't know if turmeric's OK for dogs'. So he went across the road and talked with a vet who said it was fine."
Delivery Hero has plans expand Doggy Bag to other restaurants in Sydney and nationally.
Source : Good Food Callan Boys Octoiber 24th 2014
