Highlights of Maize Blaze's Success with Deliverect — TLDR

1. Efficient Online Transition Prompted by Pandemic: Maize Blaze, a Colombian street food business in London, began online delivery largely due to the COVID-19 pandemic. Founder Ruth Christianson turned to Deliverect to manage delivery orders after struggling to connect with major platforms like Uber Eats and Deliveroo.

2. Seamless Integration with Square: The integration between Square and Deliverect played a crucial role for Maize Blaze. It allowed Ruth to manage menus and orders independently, significantly reducing the time taken to update and push new menus live - from a lengthy process to just 10 minutes.

3. Efficient Management Across Multiple Locations: Maize Blaze operates in two different sites - a street food kiosk and a kitchen residency, each with distinct POS systems. Deliverect enabled consistent and centralized order management across these locations, simplifying operational complexities.

4. Rapid Menu Management and Updates: The ability to quickly take a photo, edit, upload to Square, and push it out through Deliverect significantly streamlined menu management. This feature was particularly beneficial for a business like Maize Blaze that frequently updates its offerings.

5. Valuable Reporting System for Delivery Operations: Deliverect not only facilitated the order management process but also provided valuable reporting tools. These tools have been instrumental in making Ruth’s job easier by offering insights into delivery operations and helping in strategic decision-making.

Deliverect connects Maize Blaze with delivery partners to survive the pandemic 

A childhood in Bogota inspired Ruth Christianson to create Maize Blaze and bring the colorful Colombian cuisine of her youth to London. After opening her first stall in Camden Market in 2014, the menu of Colombian street food snacks was an instant hit, and Ruth has since enjoyed a residency at Howling Hops Brewery in trendy Hackney Wick, East London. 

Ruth explains: “We do Colombian fusion-inspired street food. We’ve got one site in our Camden Market kiosk, and then our kitchen residency is our restaurant based in Howling Hops Brewery, which has a much wider menu. So there’s the street food and the restaurant side of things.”

The underrepresented cuisine proved popular among Londoners, especially to those on gluten-free and vegan diets, because corn is traditionally used instead of wheat and there is an abundance of delicious plant-based dishes on the menu.

Things were going well for the brand until the pandemic hit and made their face-to-face operations much more difficult. That’s when she turned to Deliverect to manage delivery orders online.

"Now what I can do with the integration between Square and Deliverect is manage it completely myself and have new menus up in 10 minutes." - Ruth Christianson, Founder & Director of Maize Blaze

Seamless menu management with Deliverect’s Square integration

 Ruth explains that Deliverect helped her connect with delivery partners and made getting onto them a seamless process when time was of the essence. 

“We started delivery not that long ago, prompted by the Coronavirus pandemic,” She says, “I was really struggling to get in contact with Uber and Deliveroo, and everyone was scrambling to get online. Then, by chance, I found Square, who introduced me to Deliverect, and then I was basically up online in a few days.”

The POS integration and payment hardware providers Square and Deliverect proved vital, enabling Ruth to manage orders alone and save on staffing costs.

“Now, what I can do with the integration between Square and Deliverect is manage it completely myself and have new menus up in 10 minutes. So I’ll take a picture, I’ll edit on my laptop, upload it to Square, push it out through Deliverect, and within 10 minutes, my customers can buy my food.” 

"Having at least some kind of reporting system for our deliveries is amazing. It just makes my job a lot easier."

Consistent management of deliveries across multiple locations

 As the brand grew, the challenge of managing orders across locations presented itself. Ruth explains how the two sites, one a kitchen residency and the other a street food kiosk, had different POS systems and different processes. 

Deliverect enables her to manage all the orders in one place and keep an eye on deliveries wherever she is.

“Since I integrated Square and Deliverect, I’m able to see all our online orders in one place.” She says, “Having at least some kind of reporting system for our deliveries is amazing. It just makes my job a lot easier.”

As the brand goes from strength to strength, Deliverect offers the opportunity to expand to new locations and take even more orders without the worry of being unable to handle the logistics.