Premium meal delivery platform Providoor has stopped accepting orders and will go into liquidation according to co-owner and chef Shane Delia, who posted the shock announcement on the company’s website earlier today:
“It is with a heavy heart that I announce the closure of Providoor, a business borne out of the very worst days the hospitality industry has ever seen,” Delia said in the statement.
“While today is a very sad day, I am proud of Providoor and what it has achieved. We served more than one million meals and built something that made a difference during some very dark days.”
Speaking to Broadsheet on Friday afternoon, Delia says the decision to fold the business was out of entirely out of his hands:
‘This wasn’t the story of another Milk Run or Deliveroo falling over. Providoor was a good business, a cash viable business. Unfortunately we lost the confidence of one of our lead investors and the market at the moment is shithouse. They got cold feet and basically we’re done,” he explained.
“We went through a really pressured process to find a new home for Providoor. But in this market where everything is imploding and delivery platforms are looking like risky business, we couldn’t find one for it in time. This morning we had to bite the bullet and put it into administration. It’s gut wrenching.”
Delia launched Providoor in 2020 as a way for the country’s leading restaurants to continue employing staff and deliver some "restaurant joy" during the worst of the pandemic's lockdowns, restrictions and economic uncertainty. High-end venues to use the platform included Maurice Terzini’s Icebergs Dining Room and Bar and Cicciabella in Sydney, and Andrew McConnell’s Trader House venues in Melbourne. While a separate entity, Delia’s own Maha Group also used the service.
“The industry can sit here and worry that things aren’t going to be like they were, or we can pivot hard, not just to survive now, but to continue to thrive in the future,” he told Broadsheet at the time of the launch. “We asked restaurateurs to change the way they think and to create a package of food that can be finished at home so that the quality is maintained."
Going forward, Delia says he’ll be “opening as many doors as possible” for Providoor staff, and is proud of the platform’s legacy:
“When I walk into a restaurant now, I still get thank yous from owners and staff just for helping them keep the lights on. We gave them not just a job, but hope. For me, that’s unbelievable.”
