A NEW food app - partly developed on the Border - is helping cafes connect with the growing market for home-cooked meals.
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The online platform, Cookaborough, allows businesses to reach the market for home-cooked meals, which had swelled as cafes and restaurants were forced to close to comply with public health orders amid the coronavirus crisis.
Albury-based Cookaborough co-founder Ged Bourke said the software platform had been in the pipeline for two years.
Mr Bourke said they had brought their launch forward from late April to this week.
"Due to the demand we've brought our launch forward but obviously we'd give it all back in a second to avoid this catastrophic situation," he said.
"We're just desperate to see cafes survive and we're talking to five or six clients now to help them navigate it."
Albury business Cafe Musette signed up to Cookaborough this week, making it the first Border venture to offer its online menu among city counterparts.
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Mr Bourke said the concept was devised by four founders initially to help home cooks running regular menu cycles to reach the public.
"We foresaw two years ago there were businesses in Melbourne offering pre-prepared meals but they didn't have any systems online to do it," Mr Bourke said.
"My brother-in-law developed the concept and he shared it with his close confidants.
"We built our own prototypes and developed it within our team."
Mr Bourke said the platform was different from other online food ordering models because it focused only on pre-prepared meals that could be ordered in advance.
"We believed in the pre-prepared batch model for the commercial kitchen," he said.
"There is less waste for a kitchen in knowing it has 70 orders for lasagne than the traditional cafe model."
Mr Bourke said catering companies and restaurants were working with them to help buffer the COVID-19 pandemic.
The software automates ordering, menu release, food labelling, and reminders for customers to order.