Nordic food service offers high quality food

Business owners Simon and Morten run the catering company Nordic Food Service in Vejle. On a daily basis, they employ 16 people and feed 800 people every day for lunch. In addition, they hire 4-6 temporary workers during peak periods that Christmas lunches can create.

Morten joined the company in early 2021, where they both started to focus more on the development of Nordic Food Service. 

Morten and Simon were friends before they started running a business together, today they find their strength in having different focus areas. Development is a joint effort, but Simon runs the kitchen with a firm hand and receives high praise from Morten for his ability to keep an overview and his ability to cook good food. While Morten himself focuses on the administrative side of things. They therefore come from very different backgrounds: while Simon has worked in several of Vejle's well-known restaurants, Morten has worked in project management in some of the large companies. 

Since Morten joined the company, there has also been more focus on what the company is good at. Namely, lunch arrangements for companies. This means that they have recently cut out some of their private companies in favor of seeking out more business customers. 

It was also during the development and search for new customers that the company came to Qred for a business loan.  

Corona

During corona, the company managed to keep the status quo. Today, they believe it's because management was adaptable and saw opportunities rather than limitations. In practice, this meant that when everything shut down, Nordic Food Service started delivering food out of the house instead of large parties. 

When corona hit Denmark in the summer of 2021, the two friends also started to see an increased interest in what they could offer. As people started coming back to their businesses, this in turn created a lot of demand for lunch arrangements, and in order for the two owners Morten and Simon to keep saying yes, they had to invest. In other words, they needed extra liquidity to keep up with the demand and welcome more customers. 

It was therefore important that it was easy and quick for the two owners to apply for and obtain liquidity, and Qred was helpful. Morten says that the price of the business loan they received is reasonable from the company's point of view, considering the increase in turnover. 

Running your own business

The two friends agree that anyone who says running their own business is only fun is lying. They both have wives and children, and agree that there are times when they feel guilty about prioritizing their business over something else. In addition, they also both agree that one of the best things about being self-employed is the flexibility. 

On a day-to-day basis, they make sure that several employees in the Triangle area's companies can have lunch, so there is little desire to come home and cook everyday food. And Simon is not shy to admit that he likes to resort to takeaway, and Morten is a big fan of meal boxes. 

The future 

Today, they are gradually reaching a maximum capacity in relation to how many people the company can feed from the kitchen they are in today. Today, they have almost 4 trucks delivering food, and they can already see that an extra truck would be worthwhile. Today, they have an external refrigerated container outside their premises, so they have a place to store the food from the time it's ready until the trucks deliver it. They buy in from day to day, so despite the fact that they feed 800 people every day, they do not yet have the advantage of scale, but it is the desire and goal within the next few years to be able to move to larger premises so that there are enough refrigeration options and enough storage.