The Story of DapurGo, an Online Catering Startup in Yogyakarta

Digital transformation in the current pandemic era is an obligation. Technology, besides being able to make it easier, can also lift the competitiveness of a business. DapurGo is one that proves it.

Starting as a "conventional" catering business in 2018, DapurGo began to apply digital technology to its orders. This implementation has made DapurGo now able to deliver 2500 lunch and dinner boxes every day to serve customers in the Yogyakarta area.

DapurGo is a startup initiated by Pirli Wahyu and Eka Setyawati. With initial funding obtained from several investors they began to improve user experience and market penetration in order to get more users.

"We are aware that currently there are many competitors so the competition map in this industry is quite tight. But what distinguishes us from the others is affordability and quality. Because we try to provide the best food at affordable prices to students and office workers. We also strive to provide customer experience good, by choosing to build a kitchen and have full power over the quality of the food served," explained Eka.

Since its inception until now, KitchenGo operates in the Yogyakarta Province area with customers who come from students, office workers, to boarding house residents. They also have independent kitchens located in the Godean, Sleman, and Yogyakarta areas.

Digitization to make it easier for users

The implementation of technology at DapurGo is most visible from the side of their website presence. There is presented information about the menu, customer service, to information about current promotions.

Serving more than 2000 DapurGo users, relying on menu choices that change every week. So that customers who take the subscription option do not get bored and still get quality food. For now, as a catering business, DapurGo will share the "cake" with other food businesses that start using technology by relying on the delivery service from services such as GoFood and GrabFood.

DapurGo itself chooses to use private delivery to make it more efficient. So that the food delivered can be on time (for lunch and dinner) and the quality of the food delivered is maintained.

Previously, in Yogyakarta for the catering market online or delivery service there is also Makandiantar.com. At that time (medio 2014-2015) because the market was considered quiet, they decided to "boyongan" to Jakarta under the name Kulina, and until now it still exists as a catering service. online. Besides that, there were names like owl-kitchen (service is no longer accessible) and OrderOnly (changed to COD service for souvenirs).

The food market then and now is certainly different. The culture that GoFood and GrabFood is undeniably a factor. People are now more trusting and some are comfortable with buying food via online. Not to mention that integration with various payment options is certainly one of the advantages in transactions.

"The challenge we face today is the location of our kitchen which is in a residential area and a bit far from the city, so that every day we need to calculate and predict the travel time of the courier arriving at the delivery location on time so that the food served is still fresh so delicious to eat. The rest is still relatively the same as other startup companies in running their business," continued Eka.

Now with his experience and what has been achieved so far, DapurGo plans to raise new funds to support their plan to add new kitchens at strategic points in Yogyakarta and expand to new markets such as Jakarta, Banten, and surrounding areas.