With fresh funding, Grain wants to be the next McDonald’s, but healthier

When your brand is associated with health and fitness, that can’t be bad thing, right? Yet it can turn into an unexpected albatross, as Singapore’s Grain discovered.

“People describe us as a healthy food startup,” co-founder and head of product Yi Sung Yong tells Tech in Asia. We’re in Grain’s headquarters, a cavernous office that could easily double for a hip cooking show set.

“And there’s a tendency to think of healthy as not tasty, so it’s an association we’re trying to shake off.”

That doesn’t mean Grain is going to suddenly start advertising fried chicken dishes swimming in molten cheese or four-digit calorie counts. Rather, the startup wants to continue offering meals that are good for you but also hearty and tasty.

Grain recently redesigned its logo and wiped any references to “healthy” food from the website. Now the visitor is greeted with a tagline that reads, “Food that delights,” which is a major part of the food delivery startup’s new branding.

Part of Grain’s mission is inspired by the unlikeliest of rivals. “We want to be the next McDonald’s that’s healthy,” Sung says. I can’t help but raise an eyebrow as he explains.

“We thought, how often do you go back to your favorite restaurant? Even for a huge global brand like McDonald’s, it’s maybe two or three times a month. According to the data we have right now, for every 10 Grain customers that walk in, seven come back for a second time. If seven of these people come back two times every month, that’s a huge business.”

For the love of food

Grain competes in Singapore’s crowded online food delivery market with companies like Foodpanda, Deliveroo, and UberEats – all of them international players with significant brand capital (not to mention actual capital).

Grain is different in its full-stack approach: rather than partnering with restaurants that make the food, it prepares its own dishes.

Sung walks me through the startup’s still fresh home, where an industrial kitchen sits between walk-in refrigerators and fully stocked pantries. Full-time staff sources the ingredients and cooks the food.

The company’s delivery people work part-time but even they are chosen through a careful process that ensures quality of service and culture fit.

“We thought very hard about food delivery as a space,” says Sung. “Food has to be good, and good means tasty, healthy, affordable, and fast.”

Grain’s revenue has doubled since its last round.

Fresh funds