Brought to you by McCain Foodservice Solutions

Chef Marius Pieters and his team at Eat Out the Box in Wynberg are well known for what they do best – servicing the Southern Suburbs with handcrafted burgers and wood-fired pizza since 2010. The tight-knit, family-run business is committed to sourcing the finest and freshest local produce, all while delivering belly-filling, heart-warming and high-quality comfort food straight to your door.

Home-style menu inspiration

The menu highlights just how versatile good “home-cooked” comfort food can be – you can enjoy an order from Eat Out the Box in your PJ’s on the couch, as a romantic date-night meal on the beach, or as some seriously epic picnic chow in the park. When good comfort food is involved, there are no limits!

“Great homely food! I love food,” says chef Marius Pieters on what inspires the food at Eat Out the Box. “Since a young child, I have always had a passion for making people happy through food.”

Their pizza-inspired wedges are the stuff comfort food dreams are made of, and it’s the dish that earned them one of the McCain Foodservice Solutions’ Dishruption challenge prizes.

These are not your average pizzas. They are wood-fried, which provides an incredibly crisp, unique and smoky finish to the dish. The winning dish also highlights local produce in South Africa while ticking all those moreish comfort-food boxes! It’s the perfect dish for any occasion, whether you prefer to enjoy the cheesy wedges as a side or as the main event.

Innovation as a response to COVID-19 challenges

For small business owners, challenging times don’t just affect business as usual but one’s livelihood. COVID constraints called for innovative “out of the box” thinking at Eat Out the Box along with a general restructuring and revised strategies with regards to staff and menu, to ensure survival.

The market has become somewhat saturated with food delivery businesses and the only way to succeed is to ensure your product is of a high quality and consistently great. With this came being strategic and discerning with supplier partnerships.

Menu revisions resulted in a renewed focus on doing more by doing less, thereby allowing the team at Eat Out the Box to focus attention on quality, the dishes they specialise in and service to ensure loyal customers’ ongoing support.

“A leaner and meaner business model focused on quality, service and consistency while giving customers value,” says Marius on survival strategies. “We are more customer-centric than ever before.”

The pursuit of pizza and happiness

Making people happy is pivotal to success for Eat Out the Box. There is nothing more rewarding than seeing people come together around good homely food, and the prize money helps ease some of the stress around the pursuit of happiness for this home-grown business. They plan to use the money to help market and grow their small business – so as to dominant the market one artisanal wood-fired slice at a time!

Some wise words from one small business owner to another from Marius Pieters: “Don’t try to be everything to everyone – just be something to someone. In other words, stick to what you do best!”

Read more about the Dishruption challenge and winners here.