Singapore is a foodie city and app developers know that. In recent years we’ve seen the likes of HungryGoWhere, foodpanda and Deliveroo occupy the food app space.
A close inspection of the aforementioned apps reveals exactly how far ‘food apps’ have come. From just a platform to share information of who’s where and what to eat, to being an avenue for actual services to be rendered, fully packaged with cashless payment solutions. In fact, I’ve under-represented the quantity of food apps available by just mentioning three of them. Do a search on your respective app stores and you’ll find a slew of innovative food related applications.
cutQ enters this crowded market with a slightly different focus: take-away, centred on white-collared workers in Singapore’s Central Business District (CBD).
Founded and locally designed by Kevin Tan and Laura Tan, the coffee-loving duo wanted to bring the community together over their love for good food and brews. Having both worked in the Central Business District, the Auditor and Marketing Specialist discovered the hassle and time wasted from long queues in the morning and especially during the lunch hour. In order to beat the crowd, cutQ was formed.
The concept is simple. The morning, lunch and evening rush hours in the CBD are warzones. Queues are long and precious time is a-wasting. If there was a way for me to forgo the queue, and simply grab my coffee back to the office for a much needed morning perk, why not?
That’s what cutQ, as you can probably guess from its name, wants to offer. By partnering with merchants located near your office, they want to let you place your order via their app so you can swoop in, pick up your order at the respective cafe or restaurant, and be out before you can recite the alphabet.
I can imagine using the app to “cut the queue” for my morning coffee before work, or pick up a pizza to-go after work for an evening pot-luck. The best thing, though? No more passive-aggressive glares from my boss’s secretary because I came in 5 minutes late having to wait for my kopi siew dai.
Here’s how to start using cutQ. You’ll need to download the app that’s compatible with either Android or iOS, create an account and have a credit card ready. With that done, the process is easy enough.
Browse through the available items at their partner merchants highlighted by established names like Spizza, The Lokal and Strangers At Work. Make your selection and add in any special requests, like “no chilli” for your mains or “less sugar” for your coffee. You can even pre-order a take-away that you’ll only pick up 2 days later, say for a Friday dinner party. Finally, make payment via credit card and look forward to your meal or beverage.
“Gone are the days where customers have to call up a café or restaurant and ask what’s on the menu or order by memory. With cutQ, everything is at tip of your fingers,” says Kevin Tan, founder of cutQ.
If you’d like to take cutQ for a test run, there’s no better time than at its launch this Friday, 13 May at Club Street. It’s partnering SPIZZA to give 30% off orders through cutQ. You can also ‘Like’ their Facebook page at the same time and get a Powerbank for free, just like that.
That’s not all – if you’re game, enter their selfie competition and you could be one of 3 lucky winners to receive $100 worth of cutQ vouchers.
Too much information? Check out the official graphic below:
It seems cutQ wants to make its presence felt and it will definitely be interesting to see how they stack up against their competition. The biggest obstacle, as with any food app, is attracting restaurants and cafes to come aboard their platform – not just the quantity, but quality of them. Then there’s the question of whether the takeaway movement will take-off. One thing’s for sure, if there’s ever a place to launch a food app, it’s right here in Singapore.
This article is written by Benedict Chen.