What started off as a coding project has turned into a new online food delivery service in Greater Sudbury.
Flash the Sloth was created by Yu Peng Lu when he said he recognized flaws with the current food delivery services available in Sudbury, which usually charge restaurants a fee on each order while charging customers delivery fees.
With Flash the Sloth, those fees are cut for both the customer and the restaurant. Restaurants will be able to see a higher profit margin when customers order through Flash the Sloth and customers can also pay a smaller delivery fee, Lu said.
He also wanted to make the customer experience easier for ordering food at restaurants – so the new food delivery company doesn’t have an app.
Flash the Sloth uses a web server that restaurants can use to punch in a food order and the coding with the domain will alert the delivery service’s drivers to pick up and deliver the food. All the customers need to do is place their order through a call and pay for the food at their door when the food is delivered.
Without the middle-man of an app, it streamlines the order for food – from phone call, to the web server, to the driver and then to you.
Lu has a background in coding and is a developer for an IT company. He put together a team of developers and designed the whole system in 2021.
“It's not a small system, it's very big. It took my team around half a year to build the whole system,” Lu told Sudbury.com over a phone interview.
Lu started this as a means of cutting expenses for local restaurants, which had to pivot and overcome some big hurdles due to COVID-19.
“We’re happy to help these restaurants and save them money,” Lu said. “[Flash the Sloth] gets these restaurants to get more orders from their own website.”
Currently, Flash the Sloth is working with five restaurants in Sudbury: My Thai Palace, Rose Apple, both 7 Star Dumpling locations and Rosy’s Corner.
The business hopes to expand across Sudbury with more restaurants in the future, as well as other cities in Ontario.
Visit Flash the Sloth’s website for more information.
