Enterprise: HungryHungry
USP: During the pandemic, HungryHungry helped more than 1500 venues across Australia get online to facilitate their own takeaway, pickup and drive-up services and stay open.
Mark Calabro and Shannon Hautot met at Swinburne University, where both were studying a Bachelor of Engineering and Science. They started their first business, point of sale company OrderMate, in 2003, working out of the back of a garage in Melbourne’s eastern suburbs. OrderMate was acquired by an ASX-listed business in 2021.
“Back then, introducing this type of technology to the hospitality industry was quite a big thing, as many venues were still operating a cash register out of a box,” Shannon recalls. “We’re both passionate about, and experienced in, delivering technology solutions that help venue owners improve efficiency, increase profitability, and enhance the customer experience.”
“Pre-pandemic, we offered our customers something that seemed discretionary; once COVID hit, our technology was suddenly a necessity.”
Having worked closely with restaurateurs and chefs across a customer base of more than 2500 venues, Mark and Shannon identified some common challenges across the industry and decided to launch HungryHungry in 2018.
“HungryHungry was born out of OrderMate prior to the pandemic,” Shannon explains. “We saw the coming change in the way consumers interact with hospitality venues, from cafes and restaurants through to pubs, clubs, larger-scale venues like stadiums, and even ordering in-flight. Consumers want more choice, they want personalisation and they want to make sure they’re getting the best possible experience for the best value.”
Realising the potential for in-venue ordering – through mobile apps and paying at the table – and offering venues the ability to use the data to add to their bottom line while offering a better customer experience is the ethos behind HungryHungry.
When the pandemic hit, they had to act quickly. They needed to find a solution for their own business and work out how they could use their existing technology for pickup and delivery orders, to help their customers stay open. “We doubled down on that to provide a solution for venues to operate their own online platforms for delivery, takeaway and pickup, including a new function for curbside drive-up, where customers could enter the colour and registration number of their car for contactless pickup,” Shannon recalls.
“Pre-pandemic, we offered our customers something that seemed discretionary; once COVID hit, our technology was suddenly a necessity,” he adds. “Our vision of where we saw the industry headed became a reality and definitely helped accelerate our business.”
HungryHungry helped more than 1500 venues across Australia get online to facilitate their own takeaway, pickup and drive-up services. During this time, the company’s tech team worked hard to reduce client onboarding times from two weeks to two days. “We worked with some amazing venues, like Bistro Rex, Cho Cho San, and Bondi Icebergs in Sydney, [plus] Easey’s, Daughter in Law, Ladro and Mister Bianco in Melbourne,” Shannon enthuses.
Mark and Shannon stress that HungryHungry is more than just a QR code ordering platform. “We’re an omnichannel growth engine platform for the hospitality industry with a suite of solutions that can be used in small through to very large enterprise venues,” Shannon avers. Late in 2021, the duo launched several new tech-driven software and hardware innovations, all designed to help venues operate more efficiently and enhance the customer experience. One development was a first for a company such as theirs in Australia. It includes paperless, bespoke kiosks and in-venue tablets that provide live, actionable data at the fingertips of restaurant managers and their staff.
This article first appeared in issue 39 of the Inside Small Business quarterly magazine
