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Timo started The Company out of the living room of his apartment in London

The BBC, the weekly-in-chief-series-profiles of various executives from all over The World . This Week we talk with Timo Boldt, founder and chief executive of the meal kit business Gousto.

If Timo Boldt was a driven man, a 26-year-old financial professional, he says, he never had the time to go to the super markets.

Working long hours in London in the year 2012, he longed to cooking for a convenient, easy to eat, decent meals at home.

"Even if I don't make sense", have the time to cook, some food would be wasted, and sometimes online recipes says Timo. "I thought, how can I solve my problem and make it easier?"

the study of the question, Timo says, he realized that what he and other time-poor people needed was a solid, you need to send regular meal kits in The Post . The Boxes should contain all the ingredients to follow the already measured and easy recipe Instructions .

The Recipe box-sector is now well filled, with rival Gousto, including Hello fresh

then, seven years ago, there were a couple of companies that had already begun to do this, such as Germany Hello fresh. Timo assumed that the market was going to float, so he decided to quit his Finance job, and betting on the Start of his own meal kit business called Gousto.

Fast Forward to today, and he says that The Company see your current annual turnover of More Than £100m, and it is backed up

Together with other competitors such as Easy to cook, and Mindful cooking, Gousto is now part of an industry, the a estimate to the value of £1 billion per year in the UK alone. Worldwide, the meal kit-sector

Currently expanding its workforce from 500 to 1200 persons, all employees in the UK, Gousto is now far removed from its humble beginning in Timo's lounge.

Born and raised in Berlin, Timo had moved to London in his early 20s. To start, when he completed The City of Gousto, he used £75,000 of his own savings, and was then able to Raise £130,000 from family and friends.

"When I started, I did it from my living room with no resources," recalls Timo, who is now 34. "I went from a high salary, no salary. I tested all of the recipes of the day, and very quickly managed to get my friends and family to try the Boxes . "

Gousto send tens of thousands of Boxes each month,

will Not be able to pay themselves a wage for The First three years, he says he survives on "insane levels of optimism". Like many founders, he adds, that in the early days of The Company , which he tried to do every job, even if the affected person life with His Family .

"I have customers my personal phone number, hated my wife," he says. "People call to ask about midnight, where their delivery was. It gave me a good feeling to learn How To scale itself. "

First of all, the sale of the Boxes from a stall at a market in East London , The Company is slowly making its online presence through the word built-of-mouth and advertising. Timo also appeared on the BBC entrepreneurship TV show Dragons' Den in 2013, but not to the securing of the support provided by The Five managers. This was after he had revealed to lose Gousto was £25,000 per month to this time, and offered investment from elsewhere had.

Today, he has a Head Office in Hammersmith, west London, and its own factory in the County of Lincolnshire, which sends an average of 250,000-cooled and insulated food kits per month. The average customer says a 40-year-old, with young children.

The Business works, however, continues to be loss making, but Timo says, this is intentionally, as it focuses instead on growth. "We could be profitable, but [instead we are] investing heavily"

Nick Carroll, associate director of retail at research group Mintel, says meal kit deliveries appeal to people, the affluent and those with young Families .

The convenience of Gousto and his rival, said, an important reason for their popularity

"This speaks both for the convenience they offer, and to appeal to the working who would like to have done by Gousto, to the younger parents have down time, in the creation of a service that allows The Quick and comfortable preparation of meals," says Mr Carroll.

But, he adds that there will be challenges for Gousto and his rivals.

"It is inherent in the additional packaging for the food, the delivery kits, and given the fact that many online to tell shoppers that the height of the packaging often makes online ordering less and less attractive, this is to overcome a difficult obstacle," says Mr. Carroll.

Timo says that Gousto works to used to reduce the amount of Plastic and packaging. "We will now show reduce the use of technology to Plastic by 50% this year from an already-lowered base," he says. He adds that The Company is pleased to also novel alternatives to Plastic .

Timo says Leak some concerns

The Company also says that it works to limit food waste in their own supply chain through the use of computer algorithms to predict demand for its More Than 40 different weekly recipes. has caused

Another Problem that has Gousto, to fight with The Price of the fields, the reduce you will have by between 10-15% two years ago. They are still not cheap but. Currently, a box with two recipes to feed Two People costs £24. 99, that works out at £6. 25 per serving.

Timo says that it is able to grow, cut their prices in the year 2017 as a result of The Business and develop more economies of scale. "We all want the population to be able to afford this," he says.

Additional features:

looking to the future, Timo adds that it is to expand currently no plans Gousto outside of the UK. He does, however, worry about the potential impact of Brexit, and whether they want To Live from talented foreign people and work in the UK.

"I see a lot of macro-level risk [of Leaving], but I'm positive about Gousto and cooking at home, especially in times of Uncertainty . "

takeaway food, entrepreneurship, delivery services, gousto

Source of news: bbc.com