Four years after the business was first founded, the Cardiff-based Tidy Kitchen Company has acquired a lease for a 980 sq ft city-centre unit at 16 Museum Place.
The Tidy Kitchen Co is expanding from private catering towards a new ‘grab and go’ business model, which will invite customers to pick up a wide range of luxury, healthy, and freshly assembled meals.
Fresh salads, soups and sandwiches will be available for those needing to eat on the go or grab something delicious to take back to the office / home. Catering to all diets, these will be primarily plant-based, with the option to add PGI Welsh beef, lamb or free-range chicken, as desired.
Chiller units will sell pots of Tidy Kitchen’s homemade hummus, muhammara and baba ghanoush, and a retail section will offer reusable coffee mugs, Tidy Kitchen merchandise and ambient food products.
And in a bid to build a more sustainable business, infinitely reusable, fold-flat, dishwasher proof & microwaveable food-to-go boxes will also be available for repeat customers – earning a discount every time they are used.
Founded in late 2017 by Zimbabwe-born Laura Willett, all of Tidy Kitchen’s meals and platters had previously been hand-prepared in Laura’s catering-standard home-kitchen. The business built a loyal fan base by creating crowd-pleasing, hand-made meals for corporate events, special occasions and private clients using mainly Welsh, seasonal ingredients.
But during the pandemic, the Tidy Kitchen began delighting customers with freshly cooked comfort food and grazing platters which could be ordered online for home delivery.
It was this experience of working through the pandemic that caused Laura to rethink the business model. She said, “We started the business with a focus on meetings and events. But during the lockdowns, we really saw a demand for quality meals that gave individuals an easy way to eat well without having to cook from scratch every time.
Now that people’s lives are returning back to normal, we’ve seen that the demand is still there – people are still looking for convenience to help them make their day-to-day lives easier – but have become even more passionate about supporting local and valuing high quality ingredients.”
