FOR INDEPENDENT FOOD BUSINESSES
The best independent food businesses didn’t start to chase orders through an app. They started to feed the people around them — to know their customers by name, become part of a place, and do work they’re proud of. Hearth is built for those businesses, and for a better way of operating than the one most of them are stuck with.
Free to set up. No credit card required. Nothing to pay until you run a drop.
Every other platform gives you a better way to take the orders you were already going to get. That’s worth having. It isn’t growth.
Hearth adds something those tools don’t: planned moments you decide on — a drop. And everything you do in between feeds it — every window order, every person who follows you while nothing’s on — so Hearth knows who your customers are before you plan the next one.
A drop that fills is revenue you would not otherwise have taken.
THE DROP
Not everything you sell, all the time. A short menu, a set time, a number you can genuinely make — designed for the people you want to reach.
A Saturday collection. A hamper before Christmas. A family night at the cricket club. Something new you’ve been wanting to try, offered to your regulars first to see if it lands.
You say how many. Hearth counts down as orders come in and closes when you’re full. Nobody is turned away after paying, and you never take more than you said you could handle.
Every order is paid for before you buy an ingredient.
Southbury Farm Pizza Co
THE DAYS BEFORE
Hearth holds ordering shut for a couple of days after you publish. That gap is yours: show people what’s coming, tell your regulars, let a host share it with their group. By the time ordering opens, people are waiting.
We write the posts for you. You edit them, or you don’t.
YOUR EVERYDAY TRADE
Saturday morning collections. Thursday pre-orders. Weekday lunch. Set the times once and they repeat every week.
You declare how many orders you can take in each slot — four every fifteen minutes, or whatever your kitchen can absorb alongside walk-ins. Ordering closes when it’s full. No surprise rush, no order you have to apologise for.
And when you’re not open, your page doesn’t go dark. It says when you’ll be back, and takes their name while it waits.
Closed Sunday to Wednesday — the page says when you’re back.
EVERY WAY YOU SELL
Every one of these adds a name — and none of them needs a drop to be running.
A permanent address. lovehearth.co.uk/yourname — put it on a card by the till and it still works in a year. Whatever’s true that day is what people see.
Somewhere to go when nothing’s on. Most of the time you haven’t got a drop running. People can still follow you, so you’re not starting from nothing next time.
Catering enquiries. One line on your page, straight to your inbox.
The list you already have. Bring it with you. It’s yours either way.
Then a drop is where you use it.
AFTER A FEW WEEKS
Not charts. Sentences.
You’ve taken 140 Saturday collections since April. Forty of those people live in Broadstone. That’s a Friday drop.
Your last four drops filled fastest when you opened on a Wednesday.
It’s been longer than your usual gap between drops. Your regulars notice.
Nobody else can tell you this, because nobody else gives you the customers to read.
WHAT IT COSTS
Nothing for your ordinary trade. Your page, your collection windows, your customer list, your catering enquiries — free, always.
10% on a drop. Only on the thing you couldn’t do before.
Card fees at cost. About 1.5% + 20p, passed straight through. We don’t mark it up.
Never a penny from your customer. No booking fee, no service fee, no surcharge. What you price is what they pay.
No contract. No setup fee. No monthly fee. If you never run a drop, you never pay us anything.
For comparison: an aggregator takes 14–35% of every order — including from the regular who already knew your name.
If you want to know who’s coming before you start — Hearth is built for you.
Move your regulars off the aggregators. Build a customer base that’s yours to keep.
Formalise the pre-order model you’re already running informally. Make every pitch predictable.
Turn one-off market customers into a direct audience for your next drop.
Run planned, capacity-controlled services with a customer base that compounds.
Weekly collections and seasonal drops. Committed buyers, no marketplace fees.
Pre-order boxes, hampers and seasonal selections. Make exactly what’s needed.
Hearth isn’t for every food business, and we’re comfortable saying that.
If volume is the only metric that matters, if always-on suits your operation, if you’re happy letting a platform own your customer relationships — Hearth probably isn’t the right fit.
It’s for businesses that want something more durable than a listing.
Hearth works alongside whatever you already run — a shop front, a market stall, a food truck pitch. It’s not a replacement for how you operate today. It’s the pre-order and demand layer that builds you something those tools don’t: a customer base that’s entirely yours, and a reason for people to come back on purpose.
Set up your page today. Run a drop when you’re ready. We only earn when a drop does.